


NCIS: META 101 - Alternate Reality

by briwd



Series: NCIS: META [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briwd/pseuds/briwd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first in a two-part story introducing a superpowered NCIS Major Case Response Team - informally known as the 'META Team' - operating in a version of the DC Comics multiverse. The META team - led by longtime agent Caitlin 'Kate' Todd - is called in to help investigate a spy from a parallel world found to have compromised NCIS and other U.S. intelligence agencies. Soon afterwards, two NCIS agents from another parallel world - one without heroes - make their way to Earth I.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**  
  
He woke up in an alley, none the worse for wear.  
  
He sat up, taking note of his surroundings: a street light ahead of him in the distance, a couple of lights attached to the buildings framing both sides of the alley, three dumpsters.  
  
He smelled the garbage you'd expect in a city dumpster - and a decaying corpse.   
  
He took a closer look at the dumpster with the corpse as he struggled to his feet.  
  
Enhanced vision had plenty of benefits, including x-ray vision. He'd have to open the dumpster to take a closer look at the body, but he initially guessed based on the smell and lack of skeletal deterioration that it had been there a couple of days.  
  
The back of his neck and head still felt tender, from the blow he took. It must've been a couple of hours at least, he thought. It was enough to knock me out, for sure.  
  
He took another look around at his surroundings.   
  
"Why does this look familiar," he muttered.  
  
He took a close look at a certain part of the alley, off in the distance, away from the dumpster with the corpse.  
  
A few moments later, he leapt and flew over the 65 feet where the spot was. He hovered, ten feet off the ground, taking a very close look.  
  
Then, he realized where he was at.  
  
 _This is Crime Alley,_ he thought.   
  
 _Where the Waynes were shot._  
  
Years ago, when he was with the League, Bruce Wayne took him and showed him the spot where Bruce's parents died...and where the Batman was born.  
  
Knowing where he was at triggered another realization.   
  
 _I'm in Gotham, and my team needs me...I've got to find them._  
  
He felt around his pockets. His phone, miraculously, was still there. So was his badge, and his NCIS identification card.  
  
Agent Tim Kerry strained to remember where his team was when he lost consciousness... _where was that warehouse again?_  
  
He flew away from Crime Alley down a street filled with liquor stores, dives, bars, strip clubs and porn shops; this definitely wasn't a part of town the city fathers promoted as the New Gotham.   
  
Tim Kerry looked and looked for a Gotham PD vehicle, or an unmarked car used by some undercover cop; he wanted to see what GCPD knew about his fellow agents, including two who really should have stayed back in Washington.   
  
"No cops? Where in hell are they--"   
  
Then it hit him. The situation at the warehouse, possibly so big by now that all of GCPD's cruisers were probably there.   
  
How would the police - much less his teammates - handle some of the interdimensional thugs he remembered fighting a short time before, one of whom probably landed the blow that sent him all the way to Crime Alley.  
  
Tim needed help, and quick. He'd have to contact Bruce.   
  
As he flew higher to find the GCPD's main headquarters, and its Bat-Signal, he heard a helicopter approaching his vicinity, a mile away and closing fast. He turned around, zooming in on the copter with his enhanced vision.  
  
It had the famous Bat symbol on the front, and on the sides. And the people in it?   
  
Bruce, geared and suited up, in the pilot's chair, and his son, Damian, also fully suited up, riding shotgun.   
  
 _"Agent Kerry, this is Batcopter One. Please acknowledge."_  Tim heard from his phone.   
  
He pulled out his phone - which had a slight crack on the front screen - and spoke into it.  
  
"Agent Kerry, NCIS," he said. "Good to see you, Batman."  
  
 _"You're needed, Major Steel,"_ Bruce said, as Agent Kerry - a.k.a. Major Steel, his superheroic code name pre-NCIS - flew quickly toward Batcopter One. _"Your team is holding its own, and my team's there to help them. But we need to get back to the warehouse now."_  
  
"Acknowledged," Tim said, as he approached the copter, knocking on its front window. He swore he saw the faintest hint of a smile on Bruce's face, even as his son Damian looked fully focused and fully serious.   
  
 _"Kate yelled at me to bring you back,"_ Bruce said, turning the copter 135 degrees west southwest back towards the warehouse where the NCIS agents, GCPD and Batman's heroic associates were fighting off metahuman goons from Earth III. _"Gibbs and Ziva are holding up well."_  
  
"We shouldn't have brought them," Tim said, flying right alongside the copter as it sped towards its destination. "You have Kal or Kara on speed dial?"  
  
 _"Both, and Diana,"_ Bruce said. _"J'onn and his team are already there."_  
  
"Any signs of the Syndicate?" Tim said.   
  
 _"None,"_ Bruce said, _"although I'm prepared for their arrival."_  
  
"They're the last thing we need to deal with," Tim replied.   
  
The copter, and the agent flying next to it, approached the abandoned warehouse, located in one of Gotham's industrial sections. There must have been a hundred police cars surrounding the building and the block it was in, and Tim saw constant flashes of light he assumed were from some pretty heavy duty weapons.  
  
"It looks like a damn war down there," Tim said.  
  
 _"Robin,"_ Bruce said. _"Get on Agent Kerry's back. Kerry, fly Robin down there, I'll follow you in."_  
  
"Got it," Tim said.

Damian Wayne - the newest Robin - jumped on Kerry's back, and the agent flew into the maelstrom, towards his team. As he did so, Tim thought of how this whole thing started, nearly a day before, with the recovery of a body near a park bench in Washington....


	2. Prologue II, III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reboot of NCIS: META continues, with two prologues: the first, where the undercover spy gets his marching orders from the real rulers of his world's America, and the second, where the spy meets up with the META multiverse's version of Team Gibbs - and, the next day, meets his final fate.

**Prologue II**

**Earth III**  
 **Washington, District of Arnoldia, United States of Amerika**

**Early 2012**

Christopher Yu hated his adopted country.

If his infernal parents hadn't fled their native land of China, and come to the United States of Amerika for an opportunity to be 'free', then Christopher would have achieved greatness.

He could have been a mighty general leading his people against the damned Japanese, or an admiral on one of the great carriers of the Chinese Navy.

Perhaps he would have found his fame in the business world, leading one of China's great corporations. Or he would have been a great politician, perhaps the President himself; surely he could have more swiftly dealt with the Socialist Taiwan problem than the lackey who has it now.

Instead, because his parents couldn't succeed economically in their homeland, he is now an Amerikan slave.

Their pitiful excuses that they had no idea that the Second Amerikan Revolution would put all people under the white man's heel fell on his deaf ears.

No, if they had stayed in Shanghai, he would have been mighty.

Now?

He was an Amerikan lackey, forced to kiss the rears of fools merely because of the color of his skin and the Cold War between Amerika and China. He couldn't go back to the land he considered home because Peking had declared all Amerikan citizens enemy combatants.

And so he was stuck here, in this racist, greedy country.

Forced to do the dirty work of and for the real powers of Amerika, men and women, who would think nothing of incinerating him with their eyes, or flinging him into outer space like a paper cup thrown out a car window.

The  _worst_  part?

He valued his miserable life too much to resist.

Christopher did not want to find out for himself whether the afterlife was paradise below, or hell in the stars, or simply nothing.

Even slavery, to him, was preferable to nothing. At least he still breathed.

He found himself in a hidden room somewhere in the Office of Naval Intelligence, hooked up to a machine that forced information about a myriad of alternate realities into his brain.

He knew far more about these parallel Earths, and their Amerikan counterparts, than he cared to know...and all he had to know to carry out his mission.

In any of these other worlds, he would be given his orders by the head of their ONI, or at least a superior officer.

Here?

Not even the President himself was important enough to send him on his way.

Christopher was face to face with the real rulers of the United States of Amerika, two men and one woman, the mightiest beings on their planet.

On the left, a tall, dark-haired, muscular woman who carried her barbed wire lasso with sadistic glee, matched only by her sensuality and her lust for sex, luxuries, money and power - not always in that particular order. This homicidal bitch was the Amazon mercenary known as Superwoman.

In the middle, a tall, dark-haired male, muscular in his own way, so much so that Christopher wondered how long the man had roided up. Said to be a refugee from the alien planet Krypton, the male possessed a temper infamous the world over. This angry, impulsive, homicidal maniac was Ultraman.

To the right, a male, suited in armor that looked like a cross between an owl, a special forces soldier and an avenger of the night. His reputation was that he ruled the west coast city of Gotham with an iron grip, fighting the police forces that sought to regain power. He was known as a super intelligent man who needed constant drug injections to maintain his mental status. He, perhaps, was the true power behind the syndicate that ruled the U.S.A. This cool, cold, calculating homicidal killer was Owlman.

The Owlman pushed a button, throwing Christopher into a mental frenzy for a time. Seconds, minutes, hours...? And then, it ended.

And he knew exactly what his mission was and how he was to execute it.

"I  _still_ don't understand why we can't simply go over there  _ourselves_  and  _take what we want_!" Ultraman bellowed, suddenly, following up with a chorus of profanities. The Owlman gave him a look, and the crazed Man of Power backed down.

"I haven't had Chinese in quite a while," purred the Superwoman, holding her lasso in a suggestive manner.

Christopher hated Caucasians, but even he wasn't above enjoying carnal pleasures - and taking carnal liberties - with attractive white females.

This one scared the living Hell Above out of him.

Fortunately, the Owlman gave Superwoman a look; she acted like she didn't want to back off, or listen to him, but she obliged.

The Owlman made his way to Christopher, and he wondered if he would have been better off doing whatever the woman wanted with him.

"Yu," Owlman said, his mask right in Christopher's face.

" _Yu? You?_ " Ultraman bellowed. "What a stupid ****ing  _name_. Just like that Chinese Naval **** named Mi, like Me, M-E-"

"No less ridiculous than  _Kal_ ," the Owlman said, annoyed at having to interrupt his business to acknowledge the buffoon.

"Are you going to take him down to your Nest for some of your own-" Superwoman said, stopping only at another glare from the so-called Dark Adversary.

"Yu," Owlman said - again - "you are going straight into the field...do NOT speak unless told to. Nod if you understand."

Christopher nodded, his face showing mild passivity.

"Since the invasion from Apokolips forced our hand to work with Luthor's..."Justice" League...and then for the Syndicate to take over the government, we have been interested in other realities," Owlman said. "How their societies, their governments, their militaries, their intelligence arms work.

"The incursion from Apokolips made us realize that we needed to be... _proactive_. Not just to fight off invaders and destroy them, but to build up our own forces so we can be as equally formidable on the offensive as we want to be defending the home world.

"We need to know how the intelligence agencies of the Americas from several realities work. These realities are the biggest threats, besides Apokolips, to our own. Knowledge you learn, and pass on to us, will be invaluable as we, and our military arms, plan our strategies of attack."

Yu took it in, even as he remembered that he would have to interact with people whom he naturally despised. He understood that he would be given drugs, and mental adjustment techniques, to allow him to do this before he departed Earth III.

"You will go to Earth VI, then Earth X, then Earth XX. Your core earths will be Earths II; I; and Prime. I want you to learn about how the Naval Criminal Investigative Service works on those worlds - though on II it is the Naval Investigative Service - and I also want you to pass on what you can about the workings of the United States Navy on each world."

Christopher understood, and nodded.

"You answer to  _me_ -" Owlman said, only to be interrupted by Superwoman.

"To  _US_ ," she interjected, even as Ultraman muscled his way past Owlman and got right in Christopher's face.

" _IF I ASK YOU SOMETHING, TELL YOU SOMETHING, YOU DAMN BETTER WELL ANSWER TO ME,_ " shouted Ultraman; both Christopher and Owlman could smell his bad breath.

"Kal," Owlman said to the Kryptonian. "Go drink some  _mouthwash_. Yu," Owlman said to Christopher, "you may have to give status updates to the other Syndicate members. I will take special care to ensure you check in with Talon, Deathwing and Owlgirl as often as possible. In case they are...occupied with other matters...you will check in with the White Canary or the Grid."

Owlman motioned for Christopher to stand up.

"Now,  _go_ ," he said, pointing towards the door. "Your final mental preparations will kick in soon. Report to the Pentagon Centre; you will be told there your initial mission and how you will cross between realities."

Christopher did as he was told, absolutely compliant; he despised each of the three people there, but was no fool to challenge them.

"You  _really_ want to send that slant-" Ultraman bellowed after Yu left the room.

" _Shut up_ ," Owlman said, giving Ultraman a deadly glare; the Kryptonian responsed with a shrug, before taking a swig of whiskey. "He is much better suited for this mission, which is far better of a plan than the one you suggested."

"Oh, Thomas," Superwoman said, gently caressing Owlman's shoulders - much to Ultraman's chagrin. "I think we could do with cutting loose and tearing up one of these other Earths. It'd be fun, and think of the riches there for the taking!"

"I need  _you_  - and  _him_  - leading the Syndicate's operations here against the League," Owlman said. "Just because we had to work with Luthor, Doctor Light, White Adam, Ivy, Sinestro, Zoom and Cheetah during the Apokolipian Crisis doesn't mean they aren't trying to overthrow us. And do you  _want_ them in the way if we were to embark on an unnecessarily foolish venture?"

"Yu is important where he is. He'll gain the trust of those he meets, and is intelligent enough to hack into their networks and download the intel we need."

"Do you  _really_  need to know what kind of carriers the United States navies of Earths I and II and Prime have, Thomas?" Superwoman said, tracing her fingers on Owlman's mask; Ultraman, growing more jealous by the second, finished his bottle of whiskey and started in on a flask of Rannian ale.

"Yes, but even more, the  _people_ in those agencies," Owlman said. "Including a woman from Earth I, a former Justice Leaguer, and a prominent agent in her own right:

"Caitlin Todd."

**Prologue III, several months later**

**Earth-Prime**  
 **September 2012**  
 **NCIS Headquarters**  
 **Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.**  
 **Wednesday, 4:35 p.m.**

" _Hold_  the elevator!"

The young man sprinted to the elevator doors in the main lobby, a smartphone in his left hand and a briefcase in his right, and got there right as the lone occupant inside put his hand out to keep the door from closing shut.

"Got it, amigo," said the older man, now holding the door as the younger man got in. "Where to?"

"Three, please."

"That's where I'm going." The older man pushed the 3 button, the door shut, and the elevator began its move upwards.

"Thanks for holding that door," the younger man said, checking his smartphone. "Got a lot of things to do and I need to see some people before I leave."

"Not a problem...I'm Carlos Fuentes, I work in legal," the other man replied, holding out his hand.

"I'm Christopher Yu," the younger man replied, shaking Carlos's hand. "Office of Naval Intelligence."

"Well, most people are winding up their workdays," Carlos said. "Not us, apparently."

"The work never stops, does it?" Christopher replied, as the elevator dinged. They had reached the third floor.

"Good to meet you, Carlos," Christopher said as he picked up his briefcase, put his phone in his pocket, and walked out on the floor. "Same to you," Carlos said, walking out, in another direction.  
Christopher walked towards the stairwell to the fourth-floor, and got about 30 feet before he caught the eye of a tall, perky, unusually dressed-for-this-workplace woman.

" _Christopher_!" said Abby Sciuto, forensics specialist - loudly - as she rushed over and pulled him into a tight hug, right in front of the Major Case Response Team's "bullpen".

"Abby?!"

Christopher hugged her back, appreciative of the gesture but more than a little embarassed - especially as five of her coworkers and teammates were looking on, all in amusement.

"Abby. You don't want to crush Christopher before he leaves," said one of those coworkers: special agent Ziva David.

" _C'mon_. I didn't want him to sneak outta here before he left without a chance to say goodbye," Abby replied, with a hint of sadness in her voice. "We're all gonna miss you, right everybody?"

She looked back at the others in the bullpen - Ziva; fellow agents Tony DiNozzo (talking to a woman on his phone) and Tim McGee; and medical examiners Donald "Ducky" Mallard and Jimmy Palmer. " _Right_ , everybody?" Abby repeated herself, now looking straight at Tony.

"You mean you haven't seen Casablanca?" Tony was leaning back in his chair, his feet on his desk, a grin on his face. "Well, why don't you...come over tonight for dinner... and I'll show you one of the all-time classics-"

DiNozzo's pick-up was interrupted by a Nerf ball to the face.

"Perfect shot!" Ziva said, grinning and leaning back in her own chair.

" _What_?" Tony said, startled. The ball had bounced off DiNozzo's forehead and back to Abby's hand, and she pulled back like she was going to throw the ball a second time - a bit lower.

" _Tony_!" Abby said. " _Christopher's_ here! And he's not going to be here much longer. He's  _leaving_!" - Abby took Tony's cell phone and ended the call - "You can go on a date another time-"

" _DiNozzo's_  going on a  _date_?"

Abby turned around and saw the MCRT's leader - Special Agent in Charge Leroy Jethro Gibbs - standing there with two coffees - one of which he handed to Christopher. "Hope he has other  _plans_."

"Ahhhh," Christopher said, accepting the coffee from Gibbs. "I knew I couldn't sneak out of here without you guys knowing."

"Well, Christopher," Ziva said. "The bat is out of the box, as they say."

Everyone looked at her, a bit confused.

"As  _who_  says?" Tony asked, still nursing the 'spot' where Abby threw the ball at his head.

"Ziva means the 'cat is out of the bag," McGee replied. "Word got out earlier today. You're being transferred."

"On a classified mission," Christopher answered. "ASAP. But not before tomorrow."

"It better  _not_ be," Abby said, now bouncing the Nerf ball. "If you have any plans" - looking at DiNozzo - "cancel them. We're going to Vincenzzo's. Beer, pizza. We're all going, even Gibbs."

"Is this true?" Tony asked. "Our fearless leader, joining the troops as we say goodbye to a new but already old friend, off on a mysterious mission filled with espionage and intrigue?"

Gibbs generally didn't go out for drinks or dinner with his agents, but tonight was an exception.

" _Yep_ ," Gibbs said. "We don't have any outstanding cases, nothing that can't wait until tomorrow. And I'm buying...for  _Christopher_."

As the group decided to call it a day and head out for dinner and drinks, Abby stopped them before picking up their gear. "We need a picture," she said, "so he'll have something to remember us when he's out there, undercover, catching the bad guys...let's get someone to take a picture."

"Carlos!" Christopher yelled, sighting the man he rode up with on the elevator a few minutes before. "Would you come here, please?" He got Carlos to take the group picture, on Christopher's smartphone: Christopher in the middle, kneeling, flanked by Abby and Ziva; and standing behind, from left to right, Gibbs; DINozzo; McGee (with DiNozzo holding his fingers in a 'V' pose behind McGee's head); Palmer; and Ducky.

**Earth I**  
 **Thursday morning, 8:39 a.m.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**  
 **Ohio Drive Southwest, outside of the East Potomac Tennis Center**

The crime scene shut down Ohio Drive Southwest all the way past Buckeye Drive and was more than an inconvenience for those who wanted to enter the East Potomac Tennis Center.

But that didn't matter, not to the myriad of DC Metro police officers and detectives, and a few onlookers, on site, nor to the NCIS agents pulling up to an open spot along the road just under the Francis Case Memorial Bridge.

The agents, and medical examiner, made their way to the scene: right next to one of the benches, near one of the numerous cherry blossom trees that could be found in D.C., was the body of a young, Asian-American male, dead of a single gunshot wound to the forehead.

With him was a briefcase, a backpack and a suitcase, all of which were placed on the bench. In his hand was an iPad - some blood splatter on the touchscreen - still on, showing a single photograph.

As the NCIS team looked over the scene, one of the agents took a closer look at the tablet. When his boss called out to him, he didn't answer - transfixed by the picture, trying to figure out where he knew one of the people from.

Then it hit him...and he realized this couldn't possibly be a recent photo.

" _BORIN_!"

 **Note** : this is set during NCIS Season 10, shortly after the season premiere; therefore, the Ziva David of Earth-Prime is still with NCIS.


	3. Chapter 3

"BORIN! BORIN!!!"  
  
Special Agent Dominic Vail's cry was heard by everyone in the area of the crime scene, including crews from Washington television stations WUSA and WGDC. The latter station was also covering the incident for its affiliated network - GBS - and its crew was aggressively trying to get as close as it could, with WUSA's crew doing the same in response to its competitor.  
  
However aggressive the stations' crews were, they couldn't hope to get past Abigail Borin, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Major Case Response Team based out of NCIS headquarters at the nearby Navy Yard.  
  
"You!" yelled Borin, to the GBS reporter and her camerawoman. "Do NOT cross that tape. We're still conducting an investigation here."  
  
"And I'm trying to get a story," said the reporter, a 30ish, sandy blond Caucasian. "Agent, uh--"  
  
"Sorry, we're busy right now. No time to talk."  
  
"Agent? Who is the dead person over there?"  
  
"Like I said, lady, no time to talk."  
  
Borin nodded to a couple of D.C. Metro officers, who stopped the pair from going any further. She then sprinted over to the body of the dead man, and to Vail - one of her agents - kneeling next to the corpse, and over the tablet still in his hand.  
  
"I oughta head slap you for that," Borin told Vail. "You know everyone heard you. Including reporters, which is the last thing we need to bother with right now."  
  
"Sorry, Borin," replied Vail, who was normally relaxed and calm, but right now was extremely tense, and repeatedly glanced down at the tablet. "I should have ran to you."  
  
"No excuses," Borin said. "Who is this guy, and what's so important that you had to yell loud enough for--"  
  
"This," Vail said, "is Christopher Yu, Office of Naval Intelligence. And the reason I, uh, yelled? Look at that tablet."  
  
Borin moved over and glanced at the tablet, still on, and with the same screensaver that Vail saw when he examined the body.   
  
"Who are these people?" Borin asked after glancing at the picture. She took a closer look.  
  
The deceased was at first the only recognizable face of the group, but someone, something looked familiar. Borin looked more closely again, at each face.   
  
"Borin, look at the guy--"  
  
"Vail," she said, giving her agent a look that told him to remain quiet. Borin studied the faces.  
  
Then it hit her. One she recognized.   
  
"Leroy Jethro Gibbs," she said, quietly.   
  
"Borin?" Vail said, looking at his boss. "You know that guy?"  
  
"You don't?" Borin looked back at Vail, then pointed to the screen. "That man died for this country. Seven years ago. Defused a bomb that would have leveled D.C. You don't remember that?"  
  
Then it hit Vail:   
  
The end of the Siege - Independence Day 2005. 7-4-05.  
  
"You sure?" Vail asked Borin, while staring at the screen.   
  
"Dom, you know anyone else in this picture?"  
  
"...actually, boss, I do." Vail pointed to the crazy-looking guy in the back row, holding his fingers in a 'V' over the man next to him.  
  
"Anthony DiNozzo." Vail pointed to DiNozzo's face.  
  
"Who is he?" Borin.  
  
"He," Vail replied, "played basketball and football at Ohio State in the early '90s. He scored 30 points in the Final Four against UCLA. They show it all the time, on ESPN Classic, Big Ten Network, CBS Sports Network--"  
  
"Like either of us has the time to watch TV."  
  
"I saw it last week, flipping thru the channels. And some guys I play ball with at the gym talk about the game; one played in it."  
  
"Anyway?"  
  
"Anyway, boss... Played quarterback, started, broke his leg against Michigan in the '92 regular season finale. Wasn't the same after that...I saw a special about him; they played it during the Final Four back in March."  
  
"Didn't know you were much of a Buckeye fan, Vail."  
  
"I'm not," said the Boston native. "Celtics, Red Sox, Patriots. My college team was UConn, believe it or not. You have a team?"  
  
"Sorry. Have other things going on. You piqued my curiosity, though. You know about Gibbs?"  
  
"Yeah, I remember now. Worked for NCIS. Declared a national hero, posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. There's a memorial for him somewhere."  
  
"Gibbs, Vail, was a NCIS Agent, and led this team up until he died on July 4, 2005," Borin said. "The memorial is on the grounds of his house. That's where the bomb was. I really ought to headslap you for not knowing that."  
  
"I remember now," Vail said quietly. "Haswari made his presence felt all the way out to the West Coast. I had just gotten out of MIT when that mess went down. We heard more about the team that survived--"  
  
"Todd, Burley, Kerry, Stewart," Borin responded.   
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Vail, we'll review the high points when we get back to the Yard. For now: tap me into the NCIS database."  
  
With a few pushes on the touchscreen of his smartphone, Vail called up a virtual display, showing the homepage for the database.   
  
"Dom, search for Gibbs, specifically who was on his team May through July 2005. And do a facial recognition search against that picture on the tablet."  
  
Twenty seconds later, virtual headshots of all members of Gibbs' Major Case Response Team appeared, with names, and the dates they joined NCIS and their employment ended.   
  
"Four we both recognize: Kate Todd," Borin said, as she and Vail looked at each headshot, "Stan Burley, Tim Kerry, Marcus Stewart, and our friends from that photo."  
  
"Six matches against that photo," Vail said.   
  
"Now put them in the same order as the picture."  
  
Vail moved the headshots around.   
  
"Front row," Borin said, "Abigail Sciuto, forensics specialist, 2001-2005. Died May 24."  
  
"Haswari," Vail said.   
  
"You'll find at least six of the seven people in the photo were murdered by Haswari," Borin replied. "Next to Sciuto, we find our friend here" - glancing at the corpse - "and someone who wasn't on Gibbs' team...Dom--"  
  
"On it." Vail was doing a search on the other young woman against the entire database.   
  
At this, two medical examiners joined Borin and Vail. The junior - April Gedding - had worked in Washington for a year, under Borin's long-time M.E. Earl Darden. Darden was nowhere to be found, however; in his place, was another, much younger man: NCIS medical examiner at large Noah Rooney.  
  
Rooney - in Washington on NCIS business - and Gedding proceeded to examine the body.   
  
"Dom, let me know when you get a hit on that woman's picture," Borin said, then turned to Rooney. "Where's Earl?"  
  
"I'm sorry to say, Mr. Darden's mother passed away a few hours ago," Rooney said. "I thought you may have gotten the message by now?"  
  
The news was a shock to Borin. "Er...no, Mr. Rooney," Borin said, as Vail looked up from his display. "No, I didn't know. I didn't even know she was sick."  
  
"Sudden heart attack," Rooney replied. "They weren't able to revive her. Earl's on his way home to North Carolina now."  
  
God, Earl, I'm so sorry, Borin thought. Jenny gave the go ahead. I'd have done the same thing, probably. I think...  
  
"We'll tend to Earl later," Borin said, looking at Vail, who had a look of concern. "We have a case in front of us. Doctor, what can you tell me about this guy?"  
  
Rooney - a young, 30ish Englishman, and a naturalized American citizen by birth - looked at the forehead, and over the rest of the body, before answering. "First and foremost, the cause of death is a gunshot wound to the forehead, a single shot, clean. Instant death, I'm sorry to say, for this gentleman. The rest of the body on initial inspection shows no signs of struggle. He wasn't hit, he didn't fight. It appears he was walking along the path when he was shot through the head."  
  
"When?" Borin.  
  
"Rigor mortis is just now setting in," Rooney replied, still looking at the corpse. "Very early stages. I'm going to say he died around 5:15 a.m."  
  
"What in hell was he doing out here at 5:15 in the morning?" Borin said, more to her self than anyone else. "Dr. Rooney," she said. "What about the angle?"  
  
"Now that does pique my curiosity," Rooney replied. "His head is turned towards the Potomac River. It appears he looked out towards the river when he was shot. He fell backwards, his face still facing the river when his body hit the ground--"  
  
"Which means the shooter had to be on the water," Vail interjected. "Sorry. Search on that woman is taking longer than I thought--"  
  
"Dom." Borin said, then paused a beat. "Who would be out on a boat at 5:15 in the morning, here?" she continued. "Not to mention, what's an ONI officer out, here, that early, and what's so special about this guy that he gets shot through the head from the water...he was looking at his shooter?"  
  
"That could be," Rooney replied.   
  
Vail's virtual display beeped. "Got a hit."  
  
Borin moved over next to Vail, looking at the display, while Rooney and Gedding continued examining the body.   
  
"The hit came from Mossad records," Vail said.   
  
"Mossad?" Borin.  
  
"Yeah," Vail replied. "This, person, is, or was, Ziva David."  
  
"Call up her records."  
  
"Ziva David...Mossad agent, died June 3 2005...killed by...Ari Haswari. And...she was the daughter of Mossad DIrector Eli David...and Haswari's half-sister."  
  
Borin looked closely at Ziva David's bio, at the other mugshots, and at the photo from Yu's tablet.   
  
"Dom, who the hell are these people? Really?"  
  
"We got facial recognition on them all," he replied. "Front row, Abigail Sciuto, Christopher Yu, Ziva David. Back row: Gibbs, DiNozzo. Then, Special Agent Timothy McGee, joined NCIS 2004, died May 24 2005. Medical Examiner Assistant James Palmer, joined 2004, died May 24, 2005. And, Chief Medical Examiner Donald Mallard, joined NCIS 1991, died May 24, 2005."  
  
Borin and Vail paused for the next few moments. Rooney, overhearing the conversation, stopped his examination and walked over towards the pair.   
  
"Agent Borin, excuse me, but I could not help but over hear your conversation," Rooney said. "Those are the men and women - well, six of them - that the Special Agent in Charge of the MCRT I work with knew, and once worked with."  
  
"You work with Kate Todd?" Vail asked.   
  
"Since 2008," Rooney replied. "I'm assigned to her roving team. I am her Mallard, her Earl, if you may, to her Gibbs, or Borin."  
  
"She would know these people?" Borin.  
  
"She did know them," Rooney said. "She worked with them - well, not with Haswari's half-sister - and tragically, watched most of them die."  
  
Borin paused. "Rooney. Do you know where Kate is?"  
  
"She's here in Washington," he said, "for a meeting with some agency heads, at the invitation of the Director."  
  
"Jenny," Borin said. "Rooney. Get that body prepped, and back to the Yard ASAP. When you get there, start the examination. Dom. Contact Mossad, and get me more info on Ziva David. Who was she, what was she doing in '05, how she died. I'm gonna make a call."  
  
Borin called one of her agents back at NCIS HQ at the Navy Yard.   
  
"Kyle? Borin. Put me on speaker phone.......E.J.? Langer? You're both there? Good...E.J., Brent. I want you to find out information on Christopher Yu. Office of Naval Intelligence. Who is he, what does he do there. And why ONI hasn't been out here, yet....yeah, I'm surprised they haven't been...Kyle. Work with Dom on camera footage of the area from this morning, go back to midnight...we're looking for a shooter from a boat, on the river, and also, how Yu got here in the first place."  
  
Borin ended the call, and looked at Vail. "Let's go," she said, and Vail began wrapping up, while Yu's body was being placed in an NCIS van for transport to the Navy Yard.   
  
Then she made one last call, walking to her car nearby.   
  
"Sherrie?" she said. "Tell Director Shepard that I will be heading to her office when I get there...she's expecting me? Good. And, if Agent Todd is there, I want to speak with her, too...excuse me? She's on the line?"  
  
Sherrie - Director Jenny Shepard's secretary - transferred Borin's call directly to Shepard's office.  
  
"Borin."  
  
"Director."  
  
"First thing: ONI was not there."  
  
"I know, Director, and I'm curious as to why."  
  
"They requested we handle the crime scene and medical examination because he has worked with us in the past. You didn't see their agents there because they're all busy."  
  
"With what?"  
  
"Apparently, this Christopher Yu was not what he seemed to be...Abigail, I've spoken with Director Mueller of the FBI and Vice Admiral Card, the Director of ONI. They say this guy was a double agent."  
  
"Double agent? For whom?"  
  
"That's the mystery."


	4. Chapter 4

Navy Yard, NCIS Headquarters  
  
Caitlin Todd had been in the NCIS headquarters several times since 2005, so walking into the building shouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary.  
  
Each time she stepped off the elevator into the vast area of the third floor, and specifically past or through a particular area of workstations, the memories came flooding back.  
  
The bullpen is what they called it when she worked here and what they call it now.   
  
It's where the agents on the Washington field office's Major Case Response Team work, the same team she herself was a part of years ago.   
  
The workstations, the monitor they use to review their cases, even where their boss sits, were all similar to when Kate worked there...and yet different.  
  
Kate stopped, to look at the agents working in the bullpen.   
  
The pretty blonde - E.J. Barrett, I think that's her name - sitting where she herself once worked. At least she keeps her desk neat, Kate thought. I wonder if she's pulled an all-nighter or two here...and slept behind her desk like I did?  
  
Kate glanced over to the desk opposite E.J.'s. This desk also was neat, and as no-nonsense as the agent working there. Brent Langer, Kate remembered, joined the team under Stan and was highly regarded within the agency, all the way up to Jenny - who overlooked how Langer almost screwed up his cover with La Grenouille's daughter.   
  
Langer, Kate thought, the total opposite of Tony DiNozzo.  
  
Next to Langer's desk, of course, was their large flat-screen monitor. Nevermind that most people use virtual monitors, Kate thought. These people must be old-school.  
  
Like Gibbs.  
  
Kate shifted her glance over to where her old boss sat. Neat, tidy, not a lot of...personal stuff there. At least E.J. had some pictures on her desk. Kate had met Abigail Borin a few years ago and worked on a couple of cases with her, and thought of her as a very competent agent and a virtual copy of her old boss - down to the occasional headslaps she gave her agents.  
  
Next to Borin's desk was Kyle Omagi. Kate remembered that Kyle had joined Borin from the Coast Guard Investigative Service, and proved himself numerous times as a good agent, and loyal to Borin to a fault...  
  
...just like she and everyone else had been loyal to Gibbs.   
  
Before Haswari murdered them all.  
  
Kate looked across from Borin and Omagi's desk, where Tim McGee sat. That is where Dominic Vail sits, if I remember correctly...   
  
She had only worked briefly with Dom, but his story kind of resembled her own at one specific point.   
  
He joined NCIS after graduating from MIT in '04 and was assigned to the Los Angeles field office, transitioning into the Office of Special Projects in 2009 - a couple of months after Kate's META Team split off from the OSP.   
  
Months after starting in OSP, he was kidnapped by extremists and held captive for awhile; Dom was found to have been in L.A. all along, bound up in an abandoned theatre. When NCIS discovered his whereabouts and attempted to rescue him, Dom and agent Sam Hanna were caught on a rooftop - and Dom threw himself in front of Hanna in order to save his life.   
  
Dom was riddled with bullets and should have died. Like Kate, he too had the metagene - which gave him limited invulnerability and a overactive healing factor. It was rough going early on, but Dom eventually made a full recovery, and accepted a position on Borin's team, as a field agent and its tech expert.   
  
His desk was empty, as was Borin's, which meant they were out working a case; the other three agents were here, working the phones and their virtual computers.   
  
"Agent Todd?"  
  
Kate turned around. E.J. Barrett was waving her arms, trying to get her attention, and smiling.  
  
"Sorry, Agent Todd," E.J. said. "You looked lost for a minute."  
  
"Lost in thought," Kate replied. "Memories."  
  
E.J. looked confused for a moment or two, before remembering that Kate used to work here. Here. On this team. Where I sit...  
  
"Oops," E.J. said, now a little embarassed. "Sorry. I forgot you worked here..."  
  
"No problem," Kate answered. "It's been so long, people forget--"  
  
Omagi spotted Kate at E.J.'s desk, and briskly walked over.  
  
"Agent Todd, E.J., sorry to interrupt," Omagi said. "Borin and Dom are on their way up. She wants you to know if you're here, to meet her down in Earl's office."  
  
"Earl?" Kate only knew the field agents on Borin's team.   
  
"Earl's our M.E.," Omagi replied. "Downstairs. They're bringing a body from the case we're working on and she wants you down there when she arrives."  
  
"Do you all know what's going on?" Kate asked Omagi and E.J.; Langer was at his desk, deep in conversation. E.J. looked over at Langer.  
  
"Brent's talking to Office of Naval Intelligence," E.J. replied. "One of their agents, Christopher Yu, was found dead early this morning here in D.C. near the Potomac and near the East Potomac Tennis Center."  
  
"Boss told us to make calls on who this guy was and find out why he would have been where he was," Omagi said.  
  
"Wouldn't this be a matter for Naval Intelligence?" Kate asked.   
  
"He's worked with NCIS many times over the past few months," E.J. replied. "Yu's worked with us on a couple of cases and, honestly, it's kind of a shock..."  
  
"So you knew him," Kate said.   
  
"Not that well, but he came across as a nice guy, competent, going out of his way to be helpful," Omagi answered.   
  
Langer got up from his desk and walked over. "Appeared to be a good guy," he told the three in front of E.J.'s desk. "We may have been all wrong about Christopher."  
  
"How wrong?" Kate asked.   
  
"Double agent wrong," Langer answered. "This guy was a spy. ONI has all of its agents trying to find out who this guy was and who he worked for. Homeland, CIA, FBI, NSA, even the DEO and ARGUS are involved...they think this could be big."  
  
"What do you mean by big?" Omagi asked; nearby, the elevator dinged, and two more agents briskly walked out, toward the bullpen.   
  
"The largest security breach in American history," Langer said. "And we don't know yet who the beneficiary is."  
  
"That's the job of Homeland and the rest," said Special Agent-in-Charge Abigail Borin, to her charges. “Your job is to find out why the guy was there in the first place, at that time of the morning, and who shot him. Dom, call Mossad.”  
  
“On it, boss,” Vail said, as he got to his desk.  
  
“Mossad?” Kate asked Borin.  
  
“Kate, let’s talk on the elevator.” The two agents walked to the elevator, Borin holding a tablet tight against her side. As they waited, a third person – Carlos, from Legal – joined them.  
  
“Sorry, but you may want to take the stairs,” Borin said, curtly. “In fact, I’d encourage it, at least this time.”  
  
The two women got in the elevator, while Carlos stood there, unsure of whether he should be ticked off or brush it off and find the stairs. He pushed the down button, again, and waited.  
  
A few minutes later, he would decide it was best to take the stairs.  
  
“Borin, that was rude,” Kate told her as they stepped in. Borin said nothing, and a few seconds later flipped the emergency stop switch. The lights went down, and the elevator came to a complete stop.  
  
“Look familiar?” Borin asked.  
  
“They say you’re a ringer for Gibbs,” Kate said, “at least in the mannerisms. You got the elevator trick down pat.”  
  
“The director taught me that my first day,” Borin answered. “They worked together, way back when. Of course you did too. Figured you’d know why I brought you here.”  
  
“I’m married, Borin,” Kate deadpanned.   
  
“Not for that,” Borin replied, with a smirk. “This.”  
  
Borin held up the tablet to where she and Kate could see the screen.   
  
It was dark, but Borin thought she saw the color drain from Kate’s face.   
  
Kate looked at the tablet over the next few minutes, examining each person in the photograph, studying faces, poses, even clothing. Borin in turn studied Kate’s reactions: by and large Kate was calm, trying to disguise her emotions. But, Borin noticed, once in a while a smile would creep in the corners of Kate’s mouth, and a tear or two would appear in her eyes.  
  
“Here,” Borin pulled a tissue out of her pocket. “It tends to get dusty in here the longer you’re on this thing. Wouldn’t want your M.E. to think you’re crying over some body in the morgue.”  
  
“Thanks,” Kate took the tissue, and wiped her eyes.   
  
“Kate,” Borin asked, quietly. “Is this…was this your team?”  
  
“Borin…Abigail…I don’t know.”  
  
“It looks like them, though.”  
  
“I know…Borin, it looks like them if they had lived…is this connected to your case, to this Yu guy?”  
  
“Kate,” Borin said. “This tablet was in his hands when his body was discovered.”  
  
***********************************************************************  
  
Kate and Borin made their way to the medical examiner’s room. Kate walked in, while Borin made a side trip to forensics with the tablet, to have the photo and anything else from the SSD copied.  
  
“You’re here?” Kate said to the M.E. – Noah Rooney, Kate’s M.E. on the META team – who had intended to visit colleagues in the D.C. area, before getting called in on the Yu case.   
  
“Their regular M.E.” – Earl Darden, Borin’s M.E. – “ was called away because of a family tragedy,” Rooney answered, as he began cutting into Yu’s body. “They needed someone at the last second, literally, and I got the call as I was in the shower.”  
  
“At least they let you dry off and get dressed,” Kate answered, while April Gedding – Darden’s assistant – was opposite she and Rooney, taking photos. “I got a call from Gibbs, in the shower, as if he expected me to walk out, dripping. Did I say it was 28 that day?”  
  
All three chuckled, and Rooney made the ‘Y’ incision to open the chest cavity.   
  
“There’s a barf bag behind you if you need it,” Rooney said.  
  
“Don’t need it,” Kate replied. “How’d he die?”  
  
“Single shot to the forehead, and judging from the trajectory of the shot and where his head was turned, probably from the river, very close by.”  
  
“The shooter was on a boat,” Kate mused. “Where he shot him – in the forehead – was a good choice if you’re going to take him out instantly. But why from the river and not from the—where did they find him again?”  
  
“Ohio Drive Southwest, in front of a tennis club,” Rooney said. “There’s a road in between the crime scene and the club.”  
  
“So why not drive on the road and shoot him from there?” Kate.  
  
Rooney and Gedding finished the incision on the body, pulling open the skin and tissue to expose the cavity. They looked into the chest and did a double take.   
  
“Noah, what’s wrong,” Kate asked, as her M.E. and the assistant looked very closely at the cavity, and then began looking over the entire body, from the head down.  
  
“Caitlin,” Rooney said, “you remember basic anatomy.”  
  
“From high school,” she said. “It wasn’t exactly my major.”  
  
“Look at the organs.”  
  
Kate looked at the organs, and it hit her: something was definitely off. The heart was reversed…and so were his stomach, pancreas, kidneys, liver, gallbladder. Even the intestines looked reversed.   
  
“Everything’s backwards,” Kate said to Rooney.   
  
“His organs are reversed,” Rooney answered, looking right back at Kate. “It is a phenomenon never seen before on this earth.” He kept looking at her.   
  
“Not on this earth…” Kate looked down. Then she looked at Gedding. “April is it?”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“April. Swab the body for DNA, take tissue samples, and photograph this cavity. Do you do spectral analysis here?”  
  
“Swabbing and samples we can do, but what’s a spectral analysis?”  
  
“It’s how they find out who’s from this universe.”  
  
“Like this guy’s from another universe, like Earth II?”  
  
“Uh…yeah, that’s the idea.”  
  
“If we have one it’d be in forensics.”  
  
“If you don’t, then get the tissue and DNA samples to the FBI as soon as you can—“  
  
“Get what to the FBI?” Borin briskly walked in. “Forensics took longer than I thought.”  
  
“April here is going back there,” Kate said. “We need DNA samples and tissue samples tested for spectral analysis—“  
  
“What in hell is that?”  
  
“It’s how they test to see if you’re from another universe,” Gedding interjected. “Like Earth II. When I was a girl, we saw Superman, with another Superman ,and it turned out he was an older Superman, though he looked young, with some grey in his hair, he was from another universe, they called it Earth II, though he called it Earth…oops…I talked too much again. Sorry.”  
  
Borin stood there, dumbfounded. Rooney had cracked a smile, Kate had her hand clapsed over her jaw, but her eyes gave away her amusement.   
  
“And why would we want to do that?” Borin.  
  
“Look at his organs,” Rooney said to Borin, who looked at the organs, and figured out what Rooney was getting at.   
  
“Waitaminute," Borin said, as she continued to look at the body. "…the heart’s in the wrong place…the liver’s on the wrong side…Rooney, everything’s reversed.”  
  
“Like looking in a mirror,” he answered.   
  
“You mean this guy’s from some other universe, or planet?” Borin.  
  
“Another dimension, like April suggested,” Kate replied. “But we need to find out which one it is.”  
  
“Then send it to FBI,” Borin said. “I’ll call Fornell. He’ll want to know the autopsy results anyway—“  
  
“And I’ll call my husband, and a contact in the League.” Kate.  
  
“League?”  
  
“Justice League. They are…familiar with this kind of thing.”  
  
“Your husband is NCIS, Kate. JLA isn’t.”  
  
“We worked together on the Justice League, Borin. We have contacts there that come in handy for things like…this—“  
  
At that, NCIS Director Jennifer Shepard walked into the room, in a very serious mood.   
  
“I’ve been listening in on the conversation,” Shepard said, “and wanted to see this for myself.” Shepard looked at the body, top to bottom, and closely at the chest cavity.   
  
“Ms. Gedding,” Shepard said. “Take the samples, give them to me. I’ll get them to the FBI. Mr. Rooney, continue your examination, when you are done come straight to my office with your preliminary report. Agent Borin, your team needs to find out why Yu was where he was and who shot him. Agent Todd, call your contacts in the League, show them only the photos and tell them only they are of a person of interest.”  
  
“Jenny, I don’t like that look on your face,” Kate said.   
  
“I suspect that this spectral analysis will find what I suspect Yu’s origins to be,” Shepard said. “If it is, this changes everything and renders this investigation to be of utmost importance, ahead of any and every other case.”  
  
“Who is this guy,” Borin said, looking at the corpse on the slab in front of the group.  
  
“The biggest question is where is he from,” Shepard replied. “If he’s from where I think he is, we have a major problem on our hands.”  
  
“Where do you think that is,” Kate asked.  
  
“Earth III.”


	5. Chapter 5

Earth Prime  
Navy Yard, NCIS Headquarters  
Office of the Director of NCIS, Leon Vance  
Last night  
  
"Director Mueller?"  
  
Vance, sat back in his chair, ready to get home to his wife and children. He'd been cooped up in this office for far too long.  
  
In a few minutes, he'd wish that his position allowed for the luxury of calling in sick.  
  
Robert Mueller - Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation since one week before 9/11 - had endured more than his share of long days in recent months. He didn't look forward to the bad news he had to tell his counterpart at NCIS; Mueller's agents - including T.C. Fornell, the agent who worked closely with Vance's agency - had spent weeks double- and triple-checking the information Mueller had called Vance about.  
  
Despite stonewalling from the CIA in two dimensions, the information panned out.  
  
"Leon," Mueller said, by phone from his office in Washington. "I'll give this to you straight. "We believe that the Office of Naval Intelligence and NCIS have been compromised."  
  
"Compromised...how?"  
  
"An enemy of the United States imbedded an agent into ONI six months ago. We discovered evidence that this agent was passing along intel both on the ONI and on NCIS to his home country."  
  
"Evidence...six months ago?"  
  
"Yes-"  
  
"And why are you just now telling me this?"  
  
"Because we just discovered it this morning. Leon, I had to tell Vice Admiral Card just now and he's as unhappy as I am, as you are."  
  
"I see...what information did he pass along, and to what extent?" Leon didn't ask who; he already suspected who the agent was and he didn't like it.  
  
"Too much." Mueller explained the extent of the intel the agent had acquired; he, and his host country, not only knew ONI and NCIS's operations but many of the projects they were working on, their top agents, and intel both agencies had on enemy countries and terrorist groups.  
  
"Who is this agent?"  
  
"You know him as Christopher Yu."   
  
Leon excused himself, then took a deep breath. Yu had worked closely with Gibbs' team on a few cases in the aftermath of Harper Dearing's bombing of NCIS headquarters; God - and Yu - only knew how much info he had on the MCRT.  
  
Hell, even Leon had invited the guy to his office once, talked about his wife and kids, and Yu's professed desire to marry once he filled his obligations to his country. Yu had been in MTAC, numerous times.  
  
And Yu had been out to dinner with the MCRT that night.  
  
"Robert, who does this guy work for? North Korea? Iran?"  
  
"Leon...this is where things get...weird. You know about the Multiversal Project."  
  
"Of course. I'm working now with Director Shepard."  
  
"From which universe?" Mueller had worked with his own counterparts in three other worlds and still was a little skeptical about the whole thing; Leon, on the other hand, had accepted the existence of the multiverse, and embraced the opportunity to work with other NCISes - even as he had to jump through hoops to keep agent Gibbs and his team in the dark.  
  
Leon wouldn't be able to keep Gibbs out of the dark on this one. No, this one's gonna require full disclosure, Leon thought. Gibbs's isn't gonna like me calling him this late. And Jackie's already pissed at me for being this late.  
  
"Universe One," Leon replied.  
  
"Yu isn't from One. He's from Three. You're familiar with this..world?"  
  
"I've read the reports."  
  
"We believe Yu has been passing along intel to the Central Intelligence Agency from that world's United States of Amerika, Amerika with a 'k' not a 'c'. This nation's government and military are puppets of a group of extremely powerful metahumans whom we have put near the top of our multiversal Watch List. Leon...this bunch makes Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, [i]and the Iranians look like Sunday school."[/i]  
  
Just after midnight  
  
Leroy Jethro Gibbs had enjoyed a rare night out with the members of his Major Case Response Team. Rare because Gibbs was a man who was married to his job, and when he wasn't working on a given night he was in his basement working on the framework of a boat that he was building.  
  
In his basement.  
  
Tonight, he and his team had dinner with a man whom they came to trust as an ally, and a friend, and Gibbs had decided to come home afterwards and go straight to bed. Tomorrow would be a new day, with cases to follow and solve. Gibbs actually wanted to get a few hours of sleep.  
  
Meanwhile, Vance wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight and perhaps the next few.  
  
The news from his fellow directors at the FBI and the Office of Naval Intelligence that an ONI liaison agent working with NCIS was a spy hit Leon hard. The agent - Christopher Yu - was liked and respected within NCIS and ONI...making the news that he had stolen important NCIS and ONI documents and intel that much more difficult to accept.  
  
The greater concern was about whom Yu gave his information to.  
  
When Leon became aware of the Multiversal Project, he at first laughed it off as science fiction. After members of the Bush Administration set him straight (as were the directors of other intelligence agencies), Leon was sworn to secrecy about the Project and the existence of the other worlds.  
  
The United States government had learned of the existence of parallel dimensions six years ago, all with their own Earths, most of which had some version of the United States. Soon, came the discovery that their own Earth was codenamed Earth Prime - it was the 'base' Earth on the multidimensional scale, and all other known Earths were connected in some way to it. His own world's scientists barely understood the mechanics, but had been able to replicate ways to travel to 'nearby' dimensions, like Earth I.  
  
Yu was from another of those nearby dimensions, Earth III, where the United States was a puppet government ruled via proxy by a bunch of superpowered, metahuman madmen and women. Yu was one of their agents, and it was that government - and its rulers - who gained important intel on ONI and NCIS operations.  
  
The Project had progressed enough that department directors could bring others in on a 'need to know' basis without authorization from the White House and Homeland Security. Leon held off on telling anyone in NCIS other than Deputy Director Jerome Craig and Assistant Director Owen Granger. He knew some non-directors in other agencies knew of the Project - including FBI Agent T.C. Fornell, whom worked with NCIS - but Leon wasn't keen on telling his own agents until necessary.  
  
Now was necessary.  
  
And for this, Leon had to drive to Gibbs' home, wake him up and explain all of it personally.  
  
It took three hours of explanation and clarification, along with a drive to the Project headquarters near the Pentagon, for Leon to convince Gibbs that a) he wasn't drunk b) this wasn't a psych evaluation c) it wasn't bulls**t and d) that everything he told Gibbs was completely on the level.  
  
Fortunately, Gibbs's 'gut' told him Leon wasn't deluded but in fact telling the truth.  
  
It took another hour for Leon to get Gibbs' promise that he wouldn't raid the Project to try to cross over himself.  
  
The only reason he got that promise, Leon thought later, was that he didn't mention Kate Todd nor Jenny Shepard.  
  
Finally, as dawn encroached on the District, Leon finally left Gibbs' house, driving back to the Navy Yard - after calling home, and apologizing to his wife, Jackie for his absence - and resuming work.  
  
Gibbs, meanwhile, brewed himself a pot of coffee, mulling over the conversation with Leon in his head. The more he mulled, the more his gut told him he should have asked the director about other counterparts in those worlds to himself, his team, and his friends - alive and dead.  
  
His gut, from some odd reason, was screaming at him to follow up.   
  
Right now.  
  
Nothing keeping me from doing just that, he thought. More I know the better.   
  
The first agent he called was Tim McGee.  
  
McGee was sound asleep in his bedroom, only to be awakened by the incessant buzzing of his smartphone.  
  
"McGee!"  
  
"Boss...boss! Everything alright?"  
  
"Why didn't you pick up, McGee? I've been calling for the past five minutes--"  
  
"Boss, sor--I was asleep." McGee said, half-awake. "What's going on?"  
  
"McGee," Gibbs continued. "I need you up right now, to do some checking."  
  
"Okay," the agent replied, walking to where he laid his laptop.   
  
"You're going to check into NCIS, FBI, Homeland, other federal databases, and look for the following terms and any information about them: Multiversal Project. Parallel dimensions. Alternate reality. Alternate Earths. Earths One, Two, Three-"  
  
"What?" McGee blurted.  
  
"McGee, did you not understand me?"  
  
"Sorry...boss, I heard you just fine. Federal databases. I could get into trouble--"  
  
McGee then remembered the rest of Gibbs's directive.  
  
"McGee!" he heard Gibbs yell from the speaker on his phone.  
  
"Boss...you want me to...search all those databases for science fiction terms?"  
  
"Tim," Gibbs said, in a serious tone. "I woke you up to ask you about a project our government is involved in, and those items I mentioned are very much related to it."  
  
"Hold on. Parallel dimensions? Earth I? Are you asking me about comic books or Fringe-type stuff?"  
  
"Parallel dimensions, McGee. Alternate realities and universes. Parallel Earths. Earth III. Have you ever known me to b.s. you about anything?"  
  
"No boss--"  
  
"I'd understand your...reluctance if you were talking to DiNozzo. You're talking to me. I'm not joking about any of this--"  
  
"Boss...if what you're asking me about is true...This is George Noory type stuff we're talking about. Comic books. Sci-fi. Fringe. You're saying the government...knows of parallel dimensions?"  
  
"That is what...someone with very high clearance tells me, yes."  
  
"And what am I supposed to look for? and where?"  
  
"Start with NCIS, and work your way through the various agencies, including NSA and Homeland. Do it there, not at NCIS. And get back to me when you find out something. Keep this to yourself for now - I'll break it to the rest of the team at the right time."  
  
"Boss, what's going on? Is..."  
  
"Yes, McGee"  
  
"Is Christopher Yu related to this?"  
  
"Tim...I can't say. Right now, anyway. Trust me on this...I'm going to take Ziva and follow up on a lead. If you see anything related to Yu or to this project, call me. Tell DiNozzo and anyone else who asks that Ziva and I are working a case and I'll get back to them asap. Got it?"  
  
"Yes, Boss."  
  
Ziva David was up in her apartment, ready to start another day, with memories of a great dinner out with her teammates and their departing friend, Christopher Yu, fresh in her mind.  
  
Her doorbell rang, which almost never happened at this time of morning.  
  
Ziva approached the door, with her pistol in hand, and looked through the peep hole.  
  
Gibbs?  
  
She opened the door, to find her boss, fully dressed, with two 20 ounce cups of coffee in both hands.  
  
"Gibbs?" she said, as she let him in. "This is unusual."  
  
"It's already an unusual day," Gibbs said. "Get dressed, and get ready to go out on a case. I'll explain why after you clean up, before we leave."  
  
"Okay," Ziva said, a bit confused as to why Gibbs would show up this early, at her apartment, and to start work on a case. "Is everyone alright?"  
  
"Everyone's fine," he said. "Something else isn't alright, and I want us to check it out for ourselves."  
  
A few hours later, McGee walked off the elevator onto the third floor of the NCIS building right into the bullpen.   
  
"Whoa-ho-ho, McSnooze," Tony DiNozzo yelled at McGee, as he walked to his desk. "And I thought I was the late one here."  
  
As DiNozzo went on a monologue about McGee's tardiness and Gibbs and Ziva not being there at all, McGee blocked him completely out.   
  
He should have been at work earlier, but Gibbs' directive had him on his PC at his apartment digging up classified information.  
  
He didn't get very far - most of the information was apparently behind firewalls and layers of encryption he couldn't bypass - but what he found confirmed that something big was going on.  
  
NCIS was involved, as there were references to a Project headquarters somewhere near the Pentagon, and security clearances needed from agency directors or Homeland Security.   
  
He also found a reference to Universe One in the FBI database, and chatter in all agencies' databases about a mass breach in national security related to a Universe Three.   
  
McGee wasn't about to break this to Tony, not without a reason. And if Gibbs didn't show up soon to provide details, McGee would go to the Director himself.  
  
Tony, it seemed, was his normal self, which gave Tim a measure of comfort, as he wrestled with the implications of what Gibbs had asked him about, and what he found while hacking through the databases.  
  
"They're rebuilding everything exactly as it was before," Tony said, while McGee drank his coffee, obstensibly working on a cold case. "The question is why. What do you think, McSherlock?"  
  
McGee ignored Tony, as he was trying to figure a way to search the CIA for more info on Universe Three; moments later, he felt two paper wads hit the side of his head.  
  
"McGee!" Tony yelled. "You listening to me?"  
  
"Working on a cold case, Tony," McGee replied, pulling up a four-year old case file up on his screen, and hoping Tony wouldn't get curious and walk over to see what he was really doing.  
  
"McGee. You need to stop what you're doing and check out this Redskins cheerleader," Tony said. "Blonde, Name's Stacie. Farrah Fawcett-style hairdo. HOT--"  
  
Tim ignored him.  
  
Tony minimized the website with Stacie's bio and gallery, got up from his seat, and began walking towards McGee.   
  
"McGee, I think I can set you up with a McHottie," Tony said; McGee was beginning to break into the CIA's database, and not noticing DiNozzo. At all.  
  
Tony picked up on that.  
  
"You seen the bossman? Or Ziva?" Tony asked; Tim looked up for an instant, then focused back on his hacking.  
  
"You know something, McMysterious? Gibbs have you working on some secret project?"  
  
"You could say that," McGee replied, as Tony peered over his shoulder. McGee proceeded to break a layer of encryption on the CIA server before feeling Tony grab his wrist.  
  
"What in hell are you doing, Tim?"   
  
I just got caught, Tim realized, seeing Tony, whose eyes were as wide and in shock as McGee had ever seen them.  
  
"CIA????" Tony whispered.  
  
"Tony," McGee whispered back. "Boss's orders."  
  
"About what?" Tony replied. "CIA?"  
  
Tim explained the conversation he had with Gibbs, while Gibbs', then his, and then Tony's, desk phones began to ring.  
  
"Come on," was all Tony had to say in response; only the extremely serious expression on Tim's face kept him believing any of it.  
  
"Our phones are ringing," McGee noticed. "And Gibbs's, too."  
  
"Maybe it's the CIA, wondering why you're hacking into their database," Tony whispered.  
  
"Maybe it's Gibbs," McGee answered. "I'm picking up."  
  
The person on the other end was Abby Sciuto, the team's forensics specialist, completely freaked out over something.  
  
"McGee??? Where's Gibbs?"  
  
"Abby?" McGee answered. "What do you need?"  
  
"Oh my god, oh god, oh god, where's Gibbs, where's Gibbs--"  
  
"Tony!" McGee whispered, waving DiNozzo over. "Abby."  
  
At least 9 times out of 10 Abby was enthusiastic, perky, bubbly. Now, however, there was a mix of uncertainty, and panic, and a hint of sadness, in her voice.  
  
"WHERE'S GIBBS?" she shouted from the speakerphone. "I've called him and Ziva on their cells and gotten NO response. Now I'm calling you both--"  
  
"Abs," Tony replied, "everything alright?"  
  
"NO TONY, NO MCGEE. IT'S NOT!"  
  
"Abs, calm down....take a breath--" McGee.  
  
"McGee, Tony. Would you both come down here please?"  
  
"What's going on, Abs?" Tony.  
  
"I found something...some pictures, and I can't reach Gibbs and I don't know what to do-"  
  
"Calm down, Abs," McGee said. "What pictures?"  
  
"They're from Christopher's phone...he left his phone here in forensics, and there's some...I'm confused...just come down here. Now. Please."  
  
"We're on our way," Tony said. "What's on this phone? What pictures are you looking at."  
  
"Lots of people...some dressed up like super heroes, for real...some we know, or knew." Abby.  
  
"What people we knew?" McGee.  
  
"Tim, Tony," Abby's voice became softer, and quieter. "It's...it's..."  
  
"Who?" Tony.  
  
"It's Kate."


	6. Chapter 6

Earth I  
  
While April gathered samples from the Yu corpse to give Shepard to send over to FBI headquarters, Borin and Kate made their way back up to the bullpen, and over to Dom Vail's desk.  
  
"I hope you have news for me from Mossad," Borin said to Vail.   
  
"I do," Vail replied, and walked over to the bullpen's flat-screen monitor, where a photo of Mossad agent Ziva David appeared on the left-hand side. On the right were photos of her Mossad I.D. and an internal NCIS document prepared on her back in 2005.  
  
"Ziva David, pronounced Dah-veed," Dom said, as Borin and Kate watched behind him, while Agents Barrett, Langer and Omagi continued to track down why Yu was near the tennis club so early in the morning, and who shot him.   
  
"Israeli national, Mossad agent, daughter of Mossad Director Eli David and, of course, half-sister of the notorious terrorist Ari Haswari. Born 1982, also has a younger sister, Tali, who according to Mossad records is alive and well in Israel and somehow survived a suicide bombing--"  
  
"'Somehow' survived?" Borin. "How? Is she Superwoman?"  
  
"Perhaps something similar," Kate interjected. "Do their records specify how the sister survived?"  
  
"Classified," Dom replied. "Just that she is alive and under Mossad employ--"  
  
"That's for another time," Borin said. "Let's find out more about Zeye-vah--"  
  
"Zee-vah," Dom corrected Borin. "At some point she worked with Director Shepard in Egypt, Iraq and eastern Europe, then worked in the U.K. in counter-terrorist operations before coming to the U.S. right after most of Agent Gibbs' team was murdered by Haswari. She was Haswari's handler--"  
  
"Stop," Borin said, as Dom turned around, a little confused, before glancing at Kate.   
  
"Kate, if this is too much for you--" Borin.  
  
"It's not," Kate said. "Don't worry about me. I'm not fragile...I did live through it...Dom, I can probably talk us through the rest of it...and knowing Jenny, she'll probably make an appearance down here to fill out the details."  
  
"How'd you guess," Borin said, sarcastically.  
  
"I met Ziva one time...she showed up at NCIS, the day after her half-brother killed Abby, Ducky, Palmer and Morrow," Kate said. "I was lost in thought...thinking about Tony.   
  
"She said I was talking to myself, introduced herself, apologized for my and Agent Gibbs' loss. She asked me about my partner...Tony...and said she was here to keep Gibbs from wrongly killing a Mossad officer.  
  
"That's when I realized she was talking about Haswari."  
  
The bullpen - except for Special Agent Brent Langer, on the phone talking to someone from the tennis club - fell silent.   
  
"Anyway, Gibbs and Jenny - he always went back to his basement when something was seriously bad and he needed to think through things - they got back from his house and walked in. Jenny and Ziva greet each other with this kiss they do in Israel. I tell Gibbs straight up, 'she's here to stop you from killing Ari.'  
  
"He, Ziva and Jenny talk some more, I'm watching it from my desk. Then Ziva walks away and I spot her in a corner, speaking to someone. It may have been Ari, no one really knows."  
  
"Why not," Borin asked.  
  
"Two days later, she was found dead."  
  
"Dead?" Borin.  
  
"By Haswari himself." Kate.  
  
"Why?" Borin.  
  
"I can help answer that," Dom said, pulling up Mossad records on the main screen. "According to Mossad, Ziva learned the night of the 25th that Haswari was working with Amanda Waller, whom, as you know, was a former U.S. government operative. "  
  
"She went rogue." Borin.  
  
"Waller tried to use government funding to create her own team of assassins and villains," Dom continued. "She wanted to intimidate and target civilians, including heroes, for her own purposes. When the White House and Pentagon found out, they went ballistic; Horne, Cheney and Rumsfeld ordered her taken out, and her 'shadow' organization was dismantled. But she disappeared and as we all know held the Horne Administration responsible for her removal.  
  
"Sometime in the spring of 2005 she met Haswari. They agreed to work together; she would help Haswari kill Gibbs and his team, and build up towards a takedown of Eli David and Mossad; he would use his 'expertise', as it were, to help Waller take on the superheroic community, on the way to getting her revenge on the Horne administration and other government operatives for taking her down. "  
  
"And that's when things escalated," Borin said, "right after he killed the people Kate worked with."  
  
"I think I can take it the rest of the way," Kate said. "Ziva found out the extent of Haswari's relationship with Waller, and verified that he personally not only killed the five members of my old team and Director Morrow, but also tried to kill me, all in front of Gibbs. Dom, does their records say that she tried to kill Haswari that night?"  
  
"It says she confronted him that night, he denied it and tried to convince her otherwise," Dom answered. "She found out that he did murder the former director and our agents, tried to murder another agent and targeted Gibbs. The Mossad Director told her to kill Haswari. She tried on the 27th to take him out."  
  
"And?" Borin.  
  
"Ziva David was ambushed," Dom said. "Haswari shot her, pistol, single round, through the forehead, reportedly without remorse."   
  
"Jesus," Borin said quietly. "That guy...."  
  
"...was a monster," Kate said, also quietly, but firmly, with a steely look. "Do not ever, ever doubt that." She paused a beat. "He almost fooled me...once...the second time around I knew how dark he really was."  
  
It took Director Shepard walking down into the bullpen, from her office, to break the silence.  
  
"How are we progressing on the Yu case?" Shepard said.  
  
"Director, I'm heading to the tennis club to pick up security footage," said Langer. "The footage from Metro, for some reason, doesn't focus directly on the site."  
  
"I'm going to Metro PD now to check on that," said Special Agent E.J. Barrett, " and find out why they missed it."  
  
"But," Langer continued, "the club says they have footage of the river at the time of the shooting."  
  
"If their security system and cameras are typical of those used by most athletic clubs," Dom said, "then the resolution should be good enough for us to see the shooting, and get some kind of photo of the shooter and the boat."  
  
"Let's hope so, Agent Vail," Jenny said. "Word from forensics on the bullet?"  
  
"I can call down there and see what Kelly came up with," said Special Agent Kyle Omagi, as he picked up his desk phone to place the call, right as Borin's smartphone rang.   
  
"Borin....they what?...abandoned where....two miles down river....seal off that boat, I'm on my way."  
  
Borin packed up her gear, preparing to head out.   
  
"Have a lead, Abigail?" Jenny.   
  
"Metro found a boat, two miles from the crime scene. They found casings from bullets in the boat, that may be related to our shooter. I'm going there now."  
  
As Borin and Omagi made their way to the elevator - Borin to check out the boat, Omagi to get off at forensics - Kate, Dom and Jenny were left alone in the bullpen. Jenny noticed the monitor.   
  
"Why is a picture of Ziva David on the screen?" Jenny.  
  
"Kate?" he glanced at Kate, who nodded.   
  
"Because of this," he said, and the picture of the Gibbs team from the tablet appeared.   
  
Jenny looked at it for several moments.   
  
"What is this? And how is it related to our case?"  
  
"This photo," Kate said, "was on Yu's tablet."  
  
"It was his screensaver," Dom said. "The tablet was on when we got to the scene, and that photo was what I saw when I came to the body."  
  
Jenny remained silent for the next several moments, looking at the photo - studying it, just as Kate had done in the elevator with Borin.   
  
"Dom," Jenny said. "Send that photo up to MTAC, join Agent Todd and I there. Kate, when were you and Borin going to tell me about this?"  
  
"Soon," Kate said. "We are in the middle of a case, Director."   
  
"And--"  
  
"We're still trying to figure this out. While we track down boats, and bullets, and a corpse that has its organs reversed."  
  
"Speaking of corpses...Kate, meet me upstairs after you call your source in the Justice League about the photo I asked you to send him," Jenny said. "Agent Vail, join me upstairs."  
  
Before they could leave, Omagi ran back into the bullpen. "I've got results on the bullets," he said, walking over to Dom's computer. He called up photos of the bullets, and a couple of related files.   
  
"Kelly found these bullets came from a Remington 750 bolt-action rifle, which has a sight that could be usable for a close up shot," Omagi said, as Jenny, Dom and Kate - now standing at Borin's desk, using her terminal to log in to the NCIS database - looked on. "Close up being relative. Within 100 yards. This rifle is civilian, although it is the weapon of choice for some known hitmen.  
  
"One of which might be our shooter?" Jenny asked.   
  
"Could be," Omagi continued. "The bullets are a variation of a .300 WSM. Compatible with the Remington 750, enough to hit a target standing next to a bench near the Potomac, from up to 100 yards out. Dr. Rooney says he now believes the shooter was probably 70-80 yards away from Yu."  
  
"Can we trace the bullets to a specific rifle, used by a specific person?" Jenny.   
  
"Kelly's checking civilian police databases nationwide for some kind of match," Omagi replied. "It'll take a while to get anything conclusive."   
  
"It's a start," Shepard said. "Contact me the moment she finds something, anything. Agent Todd, after you're done, join me in MTAC. Agent Vail, you're with me."  
  
J'onn J'onzz was, in many ways, the quintessential American immigrant: the alien, separated from his homeland, finding himself in the United States in search of a new start.  
  
J'onn literally was an alien, the last known survivor of his race, from the nearby planet Mars. He was the first known extraterrestrial from within the solar system - Superman being the first known alien from outside it, preceding J'onn by several years. He was the last survivor of a cataclysm that wiped out his entire race and appeared on Earth - specifically, in America - by accident, as the result of an experiment in teleportation gone haywire.  
  
He escaped his captors and found himself in Denver. He chose to disguise himself as a human and learn the ways of humanity, accepting that he likely would never return home. He took on the identity of a deceased detective, John Jones, and honed his detective skills. Upon seeing the first known extraterrestrial - a teenaged Kal-El, then known as Superboy - J'onn decided to also fight crime as a vigilante. He began calling himself the 'Manhunter from Mars', although taking great care to stay under the radar, honing his shape-shifting and telepathic powers.  
  
When Kal-El became Superman, and Batman and Wonder Woman went public in 1990, J'onn decided to go public as the Martian Manhunter. A year later, when he and other heroes foiled an alien invasion, J'onn joined the Justice League as a charter member.  
  
Over the years J'onn has been one of the most active 'superheroes' on Earth - taking cases from Denver to Argentina - and has been involved with almost every incarnation of the League. He was on the League's roster when Haswari and Waller went on their terrorist rampage in 2005, and was one of the first to welcome Kate upon her joining the roster in the aftermath.   
  
To this day, she and J'onn remain friends, and she was one of the first people to congratulate him on obtaining full American citizenship a year ago. He in turn informed her that the government had granted him a gift: chairmanship of its version of the JLA. It is one controlled by the feds - aligned with the newly-formed ARGUS intelligence branch, attached to the Department of Extraterrestrial Operations - in response to the independently run League chaired by six of the original seven founders.   
  
Whatever is going on between the two Leagues, Kate trusted J'onn enough to go to him first - not Superman, Batman nor Wonder Woman - with the Yu photos. J'onn was familiar with Earth III, she knew, and as chairman of a government-funded superhero group, would have been briefed on Yu.  
  
Kate preferred to deliver the photos in person, to the JLA's Hall of Justice headquarters in the District. But the group was on a case in Seattle, and a phone call would have to suffice.  
  
"J'onn?"  
  
"Caitlin! It's good to hear from you. I wish it were under better circumstances."  
  
"Like Kooey Kooey Kooey and Booster and Beetle's casino?"  
  
"Hardly, though I understand Ted and Michael are attempting to start that back up."  
  
"Once was enough, don't you think?"  
  
"Not for them, apparently...I wish that was the worst of our concerns, though."  
  
"You've seen the report?"  
  
"Yes. And, the attachment in your email. Caitlin, that man is likely from Earth III, pending confirmation from his DNA and the analysis of his molecular structure."  
  
"NCIS is going crazy over this, J'onn. No one knows how much this guy knows, but the breach--"  
  
"--would be unprecedented. Caitlin, tell your director the League - my League - is following up on leads regarding whom this information is going to on Earth III. And tell her that the other League also is aware of this case, and conducting their own investigation."  
  
"Will they share everything?"  
  
"Given the current administration's actions and stance, I can't say that. They won't compromise national or global security. I doubt they will closely work with any federal agency, though, except on an as-needed basis."  
  
"What about you? You willing to team up again?"  
  
"Always, Caitlin. Your META team is doing excellent work, I hear, and I wanted to compliment you on that. I'd like for us to work with you sometime, and soon."  
  
"Thanks, and we always do our best."  
  
"I will contact you and Director Shepard personally when we return from Seattle."  
  
"Looking forward to it. And J'onn - don't overdo the Chocos. How many times have I told you those things are bad for you? You're worse than my husband."  
  
J'onn chuckled.  
  
"If only I could, Caitlin. But, tofu doesn't quite work for me after a stressful day."  
  
"J'onn, I'm afraid you may be wolfing those things down a lot in the near future, then."


	7. Chapter 7

Earth Prime  
  
Gibbs had told Ziva about the conversation between he and Vance, and everything Gibbs knew about the so-called 'multiversal project'.   
  
Ziva, in turn, at first thought it to be some sort of joke - until the deadly-serious look in Gibbs' face told her otherwise.  
  
All they had to go on, besides whatever McGee could find out from his apartment, was the address on a sheet of paper in an envelope Vance had left with Gibbs. The envelope held a number of items - credit cards, passes, letters of introduction - but Gibbs opted to keep that to himself for the moment.   
  
The address took them directly to the Pentagon Centre, a mall very close to the Pentagon on the Virginia side of the Potomac. The coordinates on the sheet were in the middle of Nordstrom's, a store both had shopped at on occasion.  
  
"I do not remember anything out of the ordinary at Nordstrom's," Ziva said as she sat in the passenger seat of Gibbs' car, both waiting for the mall to open at 10 a.m. sharp. "Especially a cosmic treadmill like Director Vance is suggesting."  
  
"It's not something out of the comics," Gibbs replied, as he drank his coffee. "Vance says the room is large, and the...device...used to travel to these other worlds is more like the transporter from Star Trek."  
  
"You honestly believe any of this?"  
  
"Ziva...I don't know...what I do know is that Leon believes it, and apparently the directors of every intelligence agency - including CIA and Homeland, and the FBI - do too. The White House knows of it. The Joint Chiefs know of it. So does Congress. Powerful men and women, all the way to the President himself. "  
  
"Then why did Director Vance not tell us before?"  
  
"Need to know basis. Think, Ziva. If it's anything like what Leon implied...forget national security; this would change the entire world. It would change everything - what we believe, our place in the universe..."  
  
"But would it change us, personally?"  
  
Gibbs turned from Ziva straight forward, looking out towards Nordstrom's, now just 10 minutes from opening for business. He drank down the rest of his coffee, took a few deep breaths, then turned back to Ziva.  
  
"Ziva," he said. "There's no reason to think that it wouldn't affect us, in how it would affect everyone. However...my gut...tells me this will affect usmore than we expect."  
  
They sat in silence for a few minutes.   
  
"Gibbs," Ziva said, looking straight ahead. "Did he name names?"  
  
"Names?"  
  
"Names, Gibbs. People we know. People we knew. Those we've lost. People who...did not make it here. Who might be--"  
  
"Let's not jump to conclusions, Ziva. We don't even know what's on the other side, if there is one--"  
  
"What if," Ziva mused, "Jenny was alive, somewhere? What if things turned out differently with Michael...what if Tali is alive? What if...Ari was a better man?"  
  
"Ziva, you're jumping to conclusions." A few shoppers had gathered around the doors into Nordstrom's.   
  
"And yet that is what that implies. What if Paula had not died? Special Agent Macy made it? Mike Franks is alive?" Ziva paused a couple of beats. "What if Ari had not murdered Kate?"   
  
Ziva knew that mentioning Kate Todd would drive her point home; she had the heart - and sense - to not bring up Shannon and Kelly.  
  
"So here we are," Ziva continued, "sitting in this car, waiting to go into a department store to chase rabbits."  
  
Gibbs couldn't help but chuckle. "You mean we're on a rabbit trail, Ziva?"  
  
"Well, not to imply that Director Vance is a lunatic, but yes, common sense and logic would suggest that there is nothing in that building that takes us to some other world."  
  
"Those people are going in, Ziva," Gibbs said, as he opened his door. "And so are we...you have the schematics on your phone?"  
  
"Yes," Ziva answered, as she got out of the car and shut the passenger door. "I know where we are supposed to go."  
  
"Then let's go in," Gibbs said, as they walked towards Nordstrom's, "and see what this thing really is all about."  
  
Tony and McGee couldn't get down to Abby's forensics lab quickly enough to suit her.   
  
When they walked off the elevator, they heard nothing - in particular the industrial rock music that always blasts from her lab.   
  
"You hear that, Tony?" McGee asked, as he made his way into the lab, DiNozzo right behind him.   
  
"I don't hear a thing, McSilence."  
  
"Exactly. Her music is off and I don't see her anywhere...Abby? Abby?!? Abby!!!"  
  
Both agents walked past the main area into the secondary area, where Abby kept her main computer.   
  
"Nowhere to be found," Tony said. "Abs? You around?"  
  
"Tony," McGee said, and motioned towards ballistics.   
  
They found Abby standing in the ballistics area, on the verge of tears, hugging Bert the Farting Hippo tight to her chest.   
  
"Guys, hug me," she said as they approached. She thrust Bert into Tony's face, and reached out for McGee, then reaching out for Tony, bringing him for a three-way hug  
  
"Abs, you alright?" McGee said, giving Tony a 'what the heck' look. Tony shrugged, though concerned about Abby.   
  
"No," she said, then started sobbing on McGee's shoulder.   
  
Tony gently extracated himself from the hug, giving Abby a minute to cry out whatever was on her mind, then spoke.  
  
"Abs," he said, gently and firmly, while handing her a couple of tissues. "We're here for you, but we can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong."  
  
Abby abruptly stopped crying, shifting her mood into work mode, and grabbed Bert from Tony's hands while breaking her embrace with McGee. "Follow me," she said.  
  
The three made their way to the main portion of the forensics lab. While she held Bert, she motioned to the main flat-screen monitor on the back wall next to her mass spectrometer machine, and the two smaller monitors nearby.   
  
All three monitors had photos of people. "Look at them closely," Abby said to Tony and McGee. "Don't say a word until you've looked at them all."  
  
Tony walked to the main monitor, while McGee examined the two smaller monitors.   
  
Five minutes later, Tony finally spoke.   
  
"You know, Abs, McGee...I've seen Dark Knight Rises, and all of the Superman movies from Christopher Reeve to Brandon Routh, the old Batman and Wonder Woman series on TV - speaking of, what a wonder Lynda Carter was, huh? - and even an episode of Smallville or two. But these are the best costumes I've ever seen, and I must have missed a movie or two. They really look like the real deal...I don't even know half these costumes...McDC, come over here for a second."  
  
McGee was transfixed by who was on the pics in the other monitors.   
  
"C'mon, McComicCon, you've read comic books. If there's some movie coming out I'd at least like to know what I'm watching--"  
  
"Tony!" McGee half-shouted to DiNozzo.  
  
"McGee," Abby said quietly, "tell Tony who those...people are supposed to be. Then, Tony, walk over to the other monitors. Please."  
  
McGee walked over, impatiently, and began pointing to each person on the big screen.   
  
"That's the Flash...and Green Lantern...Hal Jordan, and another Green Lantern, Guy Gardner...that's the Justice League, or I think that's the Justice League from the New 52 comics, though Superman's wearing his regular costume without the underpants....that's the other Justice League, from the late '80s....that's Supergirl I think....Hawkman, Black Canary, Zatanna, Firestorm..."  
  
"Gee, how McGeeky are you?" Tony.  
  
"Like you said, those are the best costumes I've ever seen myself," McGee replied. "I do know of most of these characters. All DC heroes, no Marvel. A few I don't recognize."  
  
The two men looked more closely at the main monitor over the next few minutes, before Abby broke the silence.   
  
"Guys...Tony," she said. "You need to look at these other monitors."  
  
"Yeah, Tony, we do." McGee said.   
  
"Well, if Superman is over here," Tony said, pointing to the main monitor as he walked away, "then over here", pointing to the other monitors he was making his way to, "who's there? Sherlock Holmes? JFK? James Bond?"  
  
"Just...look," McGee said quietly.  
  
So Tony looked.   


 

Borin  
Jenny  
Kate and Stan Burley and two other guys with Vice President Cheney?  
Jenny  
Kate  
Kate with unfamiliar people  
Jenny with Leon  
Borin with E.J. Barrett and Brent Langer??? And her probie Omagi and some other guy?  
Kate with Jenny? And Lara Macy? And Mike Franks?!?!?  
Kate at the Office of Special Projects in Los Angeles?   
Jenny with President Obama?  
A wedding photo of Kate? Why does that guy look familiar????  
An older Kate...and a slightly older Jenny, both looking good, and well...and very much alive.  
A monument...Gibbs' boat? In bronze? With an inscription and the flag at half-mast?

  
  
"Tim...Abby...what the hell is this?" Tony said, staring at the monitors, mouth gaping wide open.  
  
Abby walked over to one of the monitors, put Bert on the stand, and put a hand on a picture of Kate Todd, and her other hand on a picture of Jenny Shepard. 

 

"I don't know what these pictures are," she said, her voice almost a whisper. "I found them on Christopher's phone. They were a screensaver. Cycling through. I know it's an invasion of his privacy but I decided to...I decided to pull the pictures from his phone. All of them. And this" - pointing to the smaller monitors - "and that" - pointing to the big monitor - "is only part of it."  
  
"Abs," Tony said. "How many of these photos are on that phone?"  
  
"One thousand eighty-two," she said.   
  
"Are there any other files on the phone?" McGee.   
  
"Some Word docs, some emails, some other programs, the operating system..."  
  
"Pull them all," McGee said. "I want to know everything that's on his phone. All of the photos, files, I'll help you. But first, we need to discuss something in private."  
  
"Discuss what in private, Tim?" Tony.  
  
"Tony, you asked me where Gibbs and Ziva were," McGee replied. "I know where they are. And I think all of this is related to what they are doing."   
  
"What are Gibbs and Ziva doing?" Abby asked, just as Tony was trying to talk.   
  
McGee explained the phone call he had at 5:30 in the morning with Gibbs, in which they discussed what Gibbs knew about some insane-sounding project about multiple universes and how Gibbs and Ziva were going to check out a 'lead'. McGee didn't know where they went, but suspected that Vance did know...along with much more about the Project and this whole other world, or worlds.  
  
"You know when they're getting back?" Tony.  
  
"No I don't." McGee.  
  
"Tony, you're the senior agent," Abby said. "And the guy in charge since we can't reach Gibbs. What do we do?"  
  
Tony looked at the pictures of Kate and Jenny - intently - and stepped out of the lab to think.   
  
McGee and Abby looked at him with confusion, waited patiently for a few minutes, then decided to go out and drag him back into the lab.   
  
He beat them to it.   
  
"Tim," Tony said. "We'll go with what you said on the phone. I want copies of every picture, every document. I want to know what apps he has, even the operating system. That thing does NOT leave NCIS under any circumstances, short of Gibbs or the Director.   
  
"Then, we'll start tracking down who Christopher really is. Where has he been, who has he met, what has he done. Is he really Naval Intelligence? Or a spy?--"  
  
"Tony," McGee said. "Gibbs asked me to check on that project and on the alternate realities--"  
  
"You believe that, Tim?"  
  
"You believe THAT, Tony?" McGee pointed to the monitors.  
  
Tony took a breath, wiped his brow and threw his hands up. "I don't know what the hell to believe," he said. "I thought...I got over Kate's death seven years ago. And Jenny, four years ago. And never. And when Rachel did the psych evals a couple of years back. And now...that has me allscrewed up--"  
  
"Tony," Abby said, "I feel the same way."  
  
"What do you think, McGee?" Tony.   
  
"What do you think?" Abby.  
  
Tim looked ahead, at Abby, at Tony, and downward, then back at them both.  
  
"I think there is something to this," McGee said. "I think whatever it is, is big...and the people in the photographs... those people are...real...and those are more recent photos than when Kate was killed by Ari and when Jenny died. And Gibbs though he didn't know about the photographs, thought that this Project was legitimate enough to look into."  
  
"So we go forward," Tony said.   
  
"But we keep this to ourselves, until Gibbs gets back," Abby.   
  
"Keep what to yourselves?"  
  
In the doorway to the lab stood Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard.   
  
"I've been trying to contact you, Abby, about those samples," he said. "Your phone is off, your--"  
  
The doctor stopped, and noticed something was very much off, then saw the mix of emotions in the faces of Tony, McGee and Abby.   
  
Tony nodded towards the smaller monitors.   
  
"Take a look, Ducky," Abby said.   
  
Mallard made his way over and saw the pictures of the women who looked like Kate Todd and Jenny Shepard.  
  
Who, in another reality, are Kate Todd and Jenny Shepard.  
  
"Dear God," Mallard said, with a whisper. "What in heaven am I looking at?"  
  
"Abby," Tony said. "Get Palmer in here. We're going to catch he and Ducky up on everything. Then we're getting to the bottom of this."


	8. Chapter 8

Earth Prime  
  
An older man, in his mid- to late-50s, walking in an upscale clothing store with a pretty young woman in her late 20s, must have been an odd sight to some of the shoppers and employees at the Nordstroms Rack in the Pentagon Centre.  
  
Most people didn't seem to notice, although there was a pesky, older lady - pudgy, early 60s - who zeroed in on Gibbs from the moment he and Ziva walked in.  
  
Gibbs in turn noticed her, and decided to shake her before he and Ziva got to where they needed to go.   
  
"Go there and wait for me," he told Ziva.  
  
Several minutes later, Gibbs thought he had lost the lady, and briskly walked - but not too quickly - to the location: the men's department.   
  
"Can I help you?" said the cashier as she sorted shirts on one of the racks.  
  
Gibbs pulled out a card and handed it to her. She looked at it a little strangely before seemingly becoming suddently aware of its significance. She excused herself, and walked over towards a store security officer - 6-foot-5, about 270 pounds, built like a linebacker with a very small spare time around his belly - standing about 40 feet away.   
  
They both walked over, with the store cop asking for a badge; Gibbs and Ziva showed him their NCIS badges and IDs.   
  
Satisfied, the store cop motioned for them both to follow him - straight into a mirror.  
  
"Excuse me?!?" Ziva whispered, disbelievingly. "Is this the right place? A wall?"  
  
"What do the coordinates on your phone say?" Gibbs.  
  
"Right here," Ziva answered, "but this is a mirror against a wall - I cannot see any kind of--"  
  
"Pardon me." The saleswoman had returned, and this time put a reassuring hand on Ziva's arm. "Step back about 10 feet, if you would," she told Ziva, pleasantly and firmly.  
  
Gibbs nodded his assent, and Ziva and the saleswoman stepped back 10 feet, keeping their eyes on the mirror against the wall.   
  
They both saw Gibbs and the store cop literally vanish as they walked up to the mirror. Then, seconds later, saw them both reappear, walking away from it.   
  
"Look up," the saleswoman said, and Ziva saw a small, glowing pinkish circle on the ceiling, about three inches in diameter. "As long as you stand under that light and you're tagged, you'll see the secret doorway just fine. It looks like you vanish as you go up to it. Lucas, do it again."  
  
And Lucas - the store cop - walked up to it again, and disappeared, then reappeared as he walked back towards them. "See?"  
  
"What do you mean by 'tagged'?" Ziva questioned, confused.   
  
Gibbs reappared from the vicinity of the mirror and walked toward Ziva, pointing towards his neck.  
  
"Honey, you were tagged the moment you walked in," the saleswoman said, smiling, and touching Ziva's arm to calm and reassure her everything was okay. Though it wasn't quite working.  
  
Gibbs, on the other hand, calmed her down.  
  
"I was told...earlier...that we'd be hit with some kind of device the moment we walked in and we wouldn't feel a thing," he said to Ziva.   
  
"Some kind of laser, light, doo dad," said Lucas the store cop. "It's how they track you when you go through the machine. Neither of us understands how they do it."   
  
"Who are they?" Ziva asked, now less confused and more direct.   
  
"The feds," Gibbs said.  
  
"Need to know basis, sugar," the saleswoman said. "Now you two need to get along. Lucas will guide you in, and if you're looking for something here in the store, give me a holler. Now, see y'all later."  
  
With Saleswoman going her separate way, Gibbs and Ziva followed Lucas to the mirror. "I know what this looks like Miss" - Lucas said to Ziva - "but please, trust me." She did, and as she followed behind Gibbs who followed behind Lucas, Ziva saw the mirror instantly morph into a doorway leading to an elevator.   
  
"Follow me please," Lucas said - and he led into a well-lit elevator, with instrumental music softly playing in the background.   
  
"That song sounds familiar," Ziva said, making small talk with Lucas. "Is that--"  
  
"Quiet Riot. Bang Your Head." Lucas smiled. "A very different, but pleasant, arrangement."  
  
"Oooohhkaaaayyy," Ziva replied.   
  
A few seconds later, they arrived at their destination.  
  
Navy Yard  
  
Tony, McGee and Abby patiently explained everything to Donald "Ducky" Mallard and Jimmy Palmer - from McGee's phone call from Gibbs earlier that morning, to Abby's finding Christopher Yu's phone in her lab when she got in, to her finding these...strange photos, to the discussion she, Tony and McGee had before Ducky walked in on them a little while ago.  
  
Now, Ducky and Palmer were transfixed by the photos on the two smaller monitors in Abby's lab.   
  
Ducky - the Major Case Response Team's chief medical examiner, physician and profiler - was looking intently at each photo of the first batch of photos: those of NCIS agents alive and dead.  
  
Or, thought to have been dead, like Kate Todd and Jenny Shepard.  
  
Palmer, Ducky's assistant, looked through the first batch intently as well, and neither man spoke as they examined the pictures.   
  
Twenty minutes later, Abby walked up to them both, and pointed towards the second batch of photos on the main monitor: the men and women who looked like comic book super heroes.   
  
"Ducky, would you take a look at them," Tony said, "and give me your opinion? And if you tell me Hollywood," - Tony walked with them towards the big monitor - "that was my first thought too. But McGeek of Steel over here" - nodding towards McGee - "thinks they are real."  
  
Neither Ducky nor Palmer said anything in response for the next few minutes, though Palmer finally broke the silence.   
  
"You know, this would be the greatest Justice League movie ever," he said.  
  
"I thought that, too," Tony said. "Depends on the actors--"  
  
Tony noticed Ducky, then winced slightly, as if Ducky was going to headslap he and Palmer.  
  
Instead, Ducky walked back to the smaller monitors, looking at the pictures of Kate, Jenny, and the mysterious bronze boat.  
  
"I'll leave the photos on the large monitor for Timothy to explain," Ducky said. "These" - pointing towards Kate, Jenny and the bronze boat - "are the ones that have captured my interest."  
  
"What's your... impression?" Tony asked quietly, still a bit shaken up.   
  
"These photos look real," Ducky said. "Not Photoshopped. Either these are actresses who look like our dearly loved, departed friends, or these areour dearly loved, departed friends..."  
  
"Which makes no sense," Tony said, firmly. "I saw Kate die. Ziva and I found Jenny's body. We saw Kate's body in the morgue. These have to be actresses. Or..."  
  
"Or what, Tony?" Ducky.  
  
Tony didn't respond.   
  
"Or...these are Kate and Jenny. Or, a Kate and Jenny. Definitely not the ones we knew and loved, but doppelgangers."  
  
"Doppelwhat, Dr. Mallard?" Palmer.   
  
"Doppelgangers," Ducky said. "German, for look alike. It is used in fiction and folklore to represent a double of a living person, usually a ghost or some other paranormal being. According to what Tim has described, however, these people are not ghosts, but real human beings.   
  
"The question, then, is where are they from. And the answer relates to that." Ducky pointed to the main monitor, with the photos of the Justice League and other superheroes.   
  
"Parallel dimensions," McGee said. "Alternate realities. Alternate universes. We know it as a trope, commonly found in science fiction and in the comics. Characters meet versions of themselves from Earths in other universes. Some are like our own, some are very different."  
  
"Then," Ducky replied, "based on what has been discussed here, as fantastic and unbelievable as it sounds, what we are most likely dealing with is an interaction with a parallel universe."  
  
Pentagon Centre basement  
  
What Lucas, Gibbs and Ziva walked out of the elevator into was, at first glance, half civilian, half military: scientists, men and women in civilian suits - FBI? - mixed in with Marines, Army, and what looked like a few petty officers, and an Air Force colonel or two.   
  
"Is this...like the Stargate program on television?" Ziva said, more to herself than the other two men with her.  
  
"You watch Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis?" Lucas asked Ziva.  
  
"Er, no," she said. "I am usually quite busy with my work" - glancing at Gibbs - "although I have seen those shows in passing during my off hours. So I am somewhat familiar with them."  
  
"I'm a big fan," Lucas said. "But this isn't like that."  
  
Lucas explained the layout of the complex: as large as a football field, with a main 'transporter' in the center, surrounded by technical equipment meant to monitor incursions (people crossing over from other universes) and excursions (people crossing over into other universes).   
  
At various points there were cubicles, computer equipment, bathrooms, showers, a break room, and weapons ("you never know what might cross over during an incursion" Lucas explained). In the back was an auxiliary, portable transporter.   
  
"Who runs this complex?" Gibbs asked.   
  
"I'll take you to him," Lucas said.  
  
And, Lucas took them to Jonathan Overmeier, standing at his desk, talking into his phone. After greetings were exchanged, Overmeier sent Lucas on his way.   
  
It took Gibbs a few moments to place Overmeier: the then-assistant director of the CIA, January 2004, cleared as a suspect in a murder investigation of a Naval Commander.  
  
"It's been awhile, Agent Gibbs," Overmeier said. "Your reputation obviously precedes you."  
  
"And, obviously this isn't just CIA," Gibbs said. "Are you still with them--"  
  
"In a manner of speaking," Overmeier replied. "I am the Director of the Multiversal Project complex. This is, more or less, the nerve center for incursions and excursions into other Earths."  
  
"Director, is it just me or does this" - Gibbs gestured around the entire complex - "look--"  
  
"Fantastic? Ridiculous? Hollywood?" Overmeier attempted to put the older agent, Gibbs, at ease; he hadn't figured out the younger agent, Ziva, though he suspected she was slightly less skeptical than her partner. "Yes, it sounds insane. We're from the same generation and I share your...no nonsense approach. And initially, the skepticism I'm sure you had. I assure you, this is real."  
  
Overmeier spent the next few minutes explaining the Project's history and the development of the complex to Gibbs and Ziva.   
  
"The level of secrecy is extremely high, on a need to know basis," Overmeier said. "We're just now able to delegate limited authority for excursions to agency directors, Congressional leaders, the Joint Chiefs, the White House. Obviously your director thought enough of you to let you through. Otherwise you wouldn't even be here."  
  
"Director, I'm honestly not sure what to think about any of this," Gibbs said. "I understand the need to know, and that there are certain things Agent David and I don't need to be aware of. But we were sent here to, I was told, check things out. It seems to me that Director Vance knows everything you just told us."  
  
"He does," Overmeier said. "He's been here numerous times, and crossed over, as have I. No, Agent Gibbs, there's another reason you're here. Open your envelope. Look for the pink slip."  
  
"The pink slip?" Ziva.  
  
"You know something I don't?" Gibbs quipped.  
  
"Neither of you are getting off that easily," Overmeier answered, as he opened the slip. "This is your official ticket, as it were, authorization from Director Vance allowing you two a two-way trip: an excursion to the 'other side' and an incursion back from it."  
  
"Were you aware of any, trip, Gibbs?" Ziva asked, with a look of unease.  
  
"Actually...yeah," Gibbs responded. "Leon and I discussed it. That it was a possibility."   
  
"And you were going to tell me when?" Ziva.  
  
"Already have," Gibbs said, pointing to the pink slip.  
  
"You should see a yellow slip, giving you your mission parameters, which the director also would have discussed with you - if I understand, at your home this morning," Overmeier said. "Speaking of, since it was so early, would you two want some coffee?"  
  
"Wouldn't hurt," Gibbs said. Overmeier called over a corporal, who showed up a couple of minutes later with two large black coffees. Then Gibbs read the yellow slip.   
  


**Quote:**

Mission Parameters

1\. After crossing over, go directly to NCIS headquarters at the Navy Yard

2\. Request to meet the local Director

3\. Meet the Director and anyone else the Director may want to introduce you to.

4\. I know you will have questions - this is the time to ask them

5\. If there is need for your assistance with local agents on a case, you are authorized to act as a visiting NCIS Agent, with all of the rights and privileges therein, as granted by myself and the local Director

\--Vance

  
  
"Sounds simple enough," Ziva said. "Is there only one world, as it were, to, cross over to?"  
  
"I'm not following you, Agent David." Overmeier.  
  
"She's asking where we're going." Gibbs.   
  
"Ah," Overmeier replied. "Agent David, there are many worlds. The one you both will be going to is designated Earth One, labeled with a Roman numeral I. Now, being that we're putting you two on that pad in just a few minutes, the designation and the implication of their being more than two Earths will be explained over there.   
  
"Now, when you cross over, take this" - he gave Gibbs a sheet, with two layouts of the Pentagon Centre, side by side - "you'll notice the layout of the mall on the right is exactly the same as the one on the left."  
  
"That's because they are the same," Gibbs said.  
  
"Right." Overmeier. "After you cross over, you'll walk off the pad, meet someone who looks like me who is my counterpart. Once you review your mission, you'll leave their complex."  
  
"So where do we exit?" Ziva asked.   
  
"You'll exit there the same way you would here," Overmeier replied. "Go up the red elevator, which will take you to a back room in the security office. Walk out through security, and then proceed. In your case, you'll go straight out of the mall, past Marshalls, to South Hayes Street into the parking lot. Security will have given you a key to your rental; drive the rental directly to the Navy Yard.  
  
"Now I'll warn you. Cars over there are a little more advanced than they are here. Their keys work a little differently. If you want, they can get you a driver--"  
  
"How differently?" Gibbs.   
  
"Takes too long to explain, and we need to get you two on the pad asap," he answered. "You can discuss it with my doppleganger when you cross over. And...I almost forgot. There's something that Director Vance wanted you to take over."  
  
Overmeier produced a package, appearing to be two hardback books bound in brown paper.  
  
Navy Yard  
  
Back in Abby's lab, McGee was in the middle of copying over the contents of Yu's phone into a secured hard drive, and Abby was assisting, having given up on trying to get any other work done for the time being.   
  
Ducky and Palmer were going over the 'non-superhero/alternate NCIS' group of photos, trying to piece together the backstory of the world those people were from.  
  
And Tony was overseeing it all, while going back and forth in his mind between trying to contact Gibbs, or Vance, or both or neither, and trying to push the thoughts of Kate, Jenny and Jeanne Benoit out of his mind.  
  
Lost in the frenzy over the multiple photos of Kate, Jenny and others like Mike Franks, Abigail Borin and FBI agent Tobias Fornell - and the mystery of the bronze boat that looked like the ones Gibbs had built in his basement - was the absence of their own dopplegangers.  
  
It was Ducky who first thought of the latter.  
  
It also was Ducky who first saw the picture of Director Vance on the videophone between the two monitors.   
  
"Dr. Mallard," Vance said. "I didn't expect to see you in Abby Sciuto's lab."  
  
"And I, Director, didn't expect to see you on videophone," Ducky said, as everyone else tried to stay out of sight.   
  
"Interestingly enough, I was looking for you and Mr. Palmer as well as Abby, and for that matter, Agents DiNozzo and McGee," Vance said. "Are they there with you, Dr. Mallard?"  
  
Ducky looked over at Tony, who walked right over.   
  
"We're all here, Director," Tony replied. "We've been working on a case--"  
  
"Down there, apparently, and I believe I know what it is about," Vance said. "NSA and Homeland are looking for a phone belonging to Christopher Yu and want it."  
  
"For what reason," Tony asked, knowing full well why.  
  
"That's classified, but it's related to national security," Vance said.   
  
Tony - now very concerned about if McGee had finished copying the drive - mouthed to him 'how long'; McGee mouthed 'four more minutes'.  
  
"Miss Sciuto," Vance said. Abby walked over to the videophone. "Do you have that phone?"  
  
Abby looked at Tony, who nodded.   
  
"Yes," she said.   
  
"I'll be down there momentarily to pick it up. Please make sure it doesn't make its way out of the lab, Agent DiNozzo."


	9. Chapter 9

Earth I  
  
Washington  
NCIS headquarters  
Multiple Alert Threat Center (MTAC)  
  
The Multiple Alert Threat Center's mission - monitoring for indications and warnings of any threats and activity that may affect U.S. Naval and Marine operations - had not changed in its decade of operation.  
  
One gains access to the MTAC room through the use of an iris scanner. The room itself features a wall-sized screen, with tables, terminals and displays lining an adjacent wall to the left of the screen, and theatre-style seats about 40 feet in front of the screen.  
  
MTAC was busy with techies and intelligence analysts tracking down various leads on the Christopher Yu case, and the Director, Jenny Shepard, had been in and out all morning. Now she was back in, along with Special Agents Kate Todd and Dominic Vail and intelligence analyst Nikki Jardine, to look at a certain picture taken from Yu's tablet.  
  
It was a group photo of Yu, and five men and two women who died in 2005, taken the day before.  
  
Yu, flanked by Mossad officer Ziva David and NCIS forensics specialist Abby Scuito, with NCIS agents Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Tony DiNozzo and Tim McGee, medical examiner Donald Mallard and assistant Jimmy Palmer behind them.  
  
"It can't be them. It can't possibly be them," Jenny said. "They're all dead."  
  
"The photo appears to be completely legitimate," Jardine said. "Agent Johnson knows how to doctor photos and how to spot them. He looked over the photo once and he says it looks legit. Agent Ming says the OS shows no signs of tampering in so far as putting a doctored photo on there."  
  
"And the fact that the Yu guy has his organs backwards, to me confirms that this photo isn't fake and that it's connected somehow to this case," Kate said.  
  
"The prevailing theory of the moment is that Yu has been spying on NCIS, ONI and other federal agencies on behalf of an enemy nation from another world," Jenny said. "This photo could be part of that."  
  
"Or," Kate replied, "Abby talked someone into taking the picture."  
  
It had been seven long years since Kate Todd had talked with her long-dead friend - and they had only known one another just over a year and a half - but Kate thought that having such a picture taken would be something Abby Scuito would orchestrate.  
  
"I worked with her, Jenny--"  
  
"I know you did, Kate."  
  
"--and it's right up her alley."  
  
"So you believe this is real, too?"  
  
Kate stopped momentarily. Could it be real? Could it be fake...  
  
"Why would someone fake this?" she asked Jenny. "What purpose would it serve?"  
  
"The one you'd have to ask is dead," Jenny responded. "Dom, were there any other prints on the tablet?"  
  
"Kelly examined it twice and saw only his prints," Vail said.  
  
"Do we have everything off that tablet?" Jenny.  
  
"If not now, we should have copies of everything within" - Dom looked at his phone - "twenty minutes."  
  
"When you get all of the contents copied, Homeland is asking for the tablet itself. They'll get it, we'll have access. And copies of everything on it, including that photo. Ms. Jardine, your team will continue its analysis of the contents of his tablet, and I want updates as you get them."  
  
"Yes, ma'am," said Jardine, who was dismissed to return to her work. Vail was dismissed as well, leaving Shepard and Todd with the techies.  
  
"It sure looks like him, doesn't it, Kate?" Jenny said of the man who looked like Agent Gibbs.  
  
"A little older, whiter on top" - Kate said, as she and Jenny chuckled - "but it looks just like him. And the others? Mostly like they did, back them, only several years older."  
  
"And Ziva," Jenny said. "Older, less wild. She's apparently part of their team. I wonder what kind of influence Gibbs had on her."  
  
"Assuming this is Gibbs..."  
  
"Assuming it is. From where, exactly?"  
  
"Homeland is going to find out. One of the first things they'll do is spectral analysis. We can't necessarily trace the photos back to a specific universe, but we can find out where he's been."  
  
"How?"  
  
"DNA. He's picked up dirt, air, wherever he's been."  
  
"And that'll take forever, Jenny."  
  
"Not with their computers, Kate. Quantum-2 models. It'll take a few hours to analyze every atom on his body. We'll know by the end of the afternoon where he's been. And likely where those people in that photo are from."  
  
Jenny turned to leave MTAC, and then turned back.   
  
"Agent Todd," she told Kate, "there is something I'd like to discuss with you when we get through with this matter."  
  
"Might be a while, if this is as big as we think," Kate replied. "Might as well tell me now."  
  
"You and Tim have discussed expanding your team's roster," Jenny said.   
  
"We've got a good core group, but if we're going to expand this program past one team, we're going to need to interview at some point. I want to see who comes out of FLET-C first."  
  
"Fair enough. We've got some potential recruits there, all committed to NCIS."  
  
"Good. I'd hate to have Fornell poach them. You sure Dom wants to stick here?"  
  
"Dominic Vail would fit in with your team," Jenny said. "Abigail doesn't want to let him go. She has a hell of a team of her own, just like I imagine Gibbs would have had...or maybe on whatever world that guy went do, did have...but I do have ideas on a few people who might help. One of which is a Mossad agent."  
  
"Mossad? Another Ziva David?"  
  
"In a manner of speaking."  
  
Down in the bullpen, three members of the Major Case Response Team stepped off the elevator and rushed to their desks. Agents Kyle Omagi and Dom Vail were at work, pursing leads related to the Yu case.  
  
"Omagi, call Shepard," said Special Agent in Charge Abigail Borin. "Tell her and Kate if she's up there, to get down here."  
  
Jenny and Kate made their way down; after everyone was gathered in front of the main monitor in the bullpen, Borin motioned for Langer to start.  
  
"This is footage from the tennis club," he said. "They have cameras all over their property. Three point outwards, towards the street and the river. The shot is static, but the resolution is sharp enough we can zoom in ourselves and still get good detail. Or that's what their security guys told me."  
  
"Anyway. This is 5 a.m. Now Dom, fast forward to 5:15...and now it's 5:15, and we see Yu standing near the bench, under a light, in his uniform. Tablet in one hand, bags nearby on the ground next to the bench, on his side of it. Dom, fast forward slowly...stop."  
  
The time stamp on screen said 5:18 a.m.  
  
"What's that on the left," Jenny said.  
  
"The boat," Langer replied. "Go very slow on this one, Dom...here comes the boat on the left, it stops...Yu is walking, steps on the edge of the light...he stops...he looks...BAM."  
  
On screen, Yu is seen walking and stopping, and his head jerked backwards as the bullet hits his temple and goes through his skull, before his body drops to the ground.  
  
"Stop," Borin said. "Dom, zoom in on the shooter."  
  
The screen zoomed in, showing a white male, white jacket, dark hair, smoking a cigarette, and holding the Remington 750 rifle, looking through the scope.  
  
"Looks like he gets his shot...puts down the rifle, sits down and takes off in the boat," Borin said, as the tape reversed. "Dom, good thinking...zoom in on the guy, get me as sharp resolution as you can."  
  
Dom played with the settings for a minute. "That's as good as I can give you Borin," he said.  
  
"Then we'll go with that," Jenny said. "Start running facial recognition."  
  
As Dom started that process, E.J. Barrett explained Metro Police's rationale for its cameras not picking up the shooting nor the shooter. "Mechanical failure," she said. "That's what the lower level guys told me. So I escalated up a few levels and got something closer to the truth: their cameras were shut down around that time. Why, he couldn't tell me."  
  
"Or wouldn't," Kate said.  
  
"Or couldn't," Borin said.  
  
"What about our boat," Jenny.  
  
"Our boat," Borin answered, "Was found abandoned two miles down river. I met some of our forensics people down there. They swept the boat, and I had them take it back here, to the garage."  
  
"Let's go take a look," Jenny said.  
  
The group went down to the garage, examining the speedboat - which seated four but could be driven only by one person. Kelly Lefevre, the head forensics analyst, said her team had found some hairs on the floor underneath the steering wheel as well as fingerprints on the side of the boat.  
  
Forty-five minutes later, hits on facial recognition and on the DNA from the boat hit seconds apart. Shepard ran down from MTAC to the bullpen to hear the news.  
  
"Borin," Lefevre said via virtual Skype, "DNA matches that of Thomas Monaghan, of Gotham, and a known hitman wanted by the FBI. Hit came from the FBI and Gotham and New York police databases."  
  
"And Borin...facial recognition seems to confirm it," Dom said.  
  
"Put it up on the screen." Borin.  
  
The main screen split - the shot from the surveillance video on the left, and mug shots from Gotham and New York police on the right.  
  
"Give me a virtual screen, Dom, with the details on this guy," Borin said. Three screens - one from Gotham PD, one NYPD and the third from FBI - appeared in front of her.  
  
"Hitman for hire...claims to have worked for the mafia, the government, even demons," Borin said. "Even worked with the Justice League?" looking at Kate.  
  
"Not my League," she answered. "This guy, whomever he is, looks to have been all over the place."  
  
"Everybody. Dig into his past," Borin said. "What do Gotham and New York police know about him. What kind of hits does he take. Does he use a Remington. Check with NYPD on the bullets. Anything and everything on his background, anything that would tell us why he would shoot Christopher Yu. Also, let's find where he has been recently, and if he's there now."  
  
"Director, Borin, I started running background on the guy after we got a hit," Omagi said. "This might be of interest: Justice League database says the League - when they were headquartered on the moon a few years back - dealt with him a few times. They list him as having telepathic powers and x-ray vision."  
  
"What kind of dealings?" Jenny.  
  
"He helped the CIA and the Green Lantern Kyle Rayner take down a rogue CIA agent who wanted to kill metahumans, and helped the League eradicate some kind of parasitic outbreak at their headquarters."  
  
"This guy's a telepath?" Jenny asked. "Kate, we might need your team's help on this one."  
  
Kate's META team was in fact in Miami, helping the Miami-Dade Police Department and its Crime Scene Investigation division on a case. A telepathic Marine had gone AWOL from Camp Lejeune several months before and gone on a crime spree in south Florida.  
  
"He raped three women, then attempted to use his telepathy to wipe their minds clean," said Special Agent Tim Kerry - formerly a Marine, then the hero known as Major Steel, and then Kate Todd's husband - by video.   
  
"Attempted being the operative word. His power is erratic, and none of the mindwipes held. He tried to use his telepathy as a weapon against Miami police; he was strong enough to be more of a match for them, but not quite strong enough that we and Miami police couldn't take him down together."  
  
"Where is he now?" Kate.  
  
"In Miami lockup," Tim Kerry said. "Horatio Crane wants to nail this guy to the wall, and with good reason. Two of those rapes were brutal."  
  
"Tim, you're read the reports on Christopher Yu."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"We think we found the shooter. Tommy Monaghan. Gotham-based hitman. Look at your email."  
  
"Looking now...waitaminute. Kate. I know this guy."  
  
"You know him???"  
  
"Sorry. Of him...JLA worked with him...and he's a known hitman in Gotham. Did some jobs in New York City, too."  
  
"Well, we can't exactly call the 'Super Seven', and the government League may not have adequate records...how's your contacts in Gotham?"  
  
"I know some people in Gotham police I can call...and Danny."  
  
"Danny?"  
  
"Danny."  
  
"Danny? Really?"  
  
"Kate, he knows the east coast criminal scene. He knows Gotham. He probably knows this guy, if not him then his associates. I know you're not crazy about him--"  
  
"'I'm not crazy about him.' Quite an understatement. He's nuttier than a fruitcake. Have you forgotten Delaware?"  
  
"No...Katie...look. We're cops. He's an informant. We have a suspect and since this guy's telepathic we're the ones that Jenny is going to send after him. I need Danny."  
  
"I almost would rather send a ship up to the League satellite to ask for help and piss off Jenny and Steve Trevor both."  
  
"Almost, but not quite...Danny's crazier than a loon but he'll help us find Monaghan."  
  
Washington, D.C., Hall of Justice  
  
Steve Trevor, Colonel, United States Air Force.  
  
Former liaison to the privately-run Justice League, and former long-time boyfriend of none other than Wonder Woman.  
  
Currently without a girlfriend, because he is the current operations director of the government run-and-funded Justice League of America, and also the head of the Department of Extranormal Operation's ARGUS (Advanced Research Group for Unification of Superhuman assets) subdivision.  
  
Trevor's a busy man on the lightest of days.  
  
With the Yu case, his month just got triple-booked.  
  
Justice League Watchtower  
  
Located 22,300 miles above Atlantis in the north Atlantic Ocean, the Justice League Watchtower is one of the world's most advanced space stations. It is the latest generation of stations that housed the headquarters of the legendary group of heroes known as the Justice League.  
  
In at least one world, they are merely fictional characters; depending on whom you encounter, they may be thought of as American icons, or children's cartoons, or material for summer blockbuster movies, or stories for immature young men.  
  
Here, they are highly respected and beloved, as protectors of the public, upholders of the greater good and symbols of truth, justice and the American way - even if they and the United States government don't always see eye to eye.  
  
Today, the men and women who make up this version of the League should be at their civilian jobs, in their (largely) secret identities.  
  
Not this morning.  
  
"How long's this gonna take?" said Jason Rusch - a college student, and one half of the being known as Firestorm. "I got a class in 20 minutes. I can't afford to miss than three times, and I've already got all three times planned out."  
  
"Tough break, son," said Barry Allen, also known as the Flash. He had been away from his desk at the CSI lab at the Central City (Missouri) Police Department's main headquarters for five minutes, and being away much longer would put him further down his supervisor's crap list.  
  
With the arrival of Wonder Woman and the new Atom, the full membership of the League was on the station, and the emergency meeting could begin. Clark Kent, Superman - the current chairman - called the meeting to order.  
  
Bruce Wayne, the Batman, briefed the group on the main topic: Christopher Yu, the alleged Naval Intelligence officer who apparently was a spy from Earth III.  
  
"Every federal intelligence agency - including NCIS - is investigating this man," Batman said. "So is the government's Justice League."  
  
"And why aren't we working with them?" asked one of the newest members, Emily Jung, the Element Woman. "We're all Justice League, right?"  
  
"I wish it were that simple, Emily," Superman replied.  
  
"They are...handcuffed to a certain extent by government regulations," Batman answered. "We are not. NCIS, the FBI and the other agencies can work with them on their investigation. We will conduct our own investigation...starting by going to the source itself."  
  
"You mean another trip to Earth III," said the Green Lantern, Hal Jordan.  
  
"Yes. You, Wonder Woman, Atom and myself. Starting immediately." Batman.  
  
"And I thought this week was going to be boring."  
  
NCIS headquarters  
  
Director Jenny Shepard's office  
  
"Director Vance, I'm happy you had time to take my call," Jenny said, speaking to Earth Prime NCIS Director Leon Vance by phone. "I realize you are as busy as I am here."  
  
Actually, they were speaking via a special, interdimensional hardline connection set up in the early days of the Multiversal Project, allowing officials from different worlds to communicate without having to physically travel to other worlds or to a common area.  
  
"I'm afraid my own time is very limited, as is yours," Vance replied. "You know by now we both have a major intelligence breach on our hands. A man presenting himself as a Naval Intelligence officer, Christopher Yu, apparently is a spy."  
  
"Christopher Yu???"  
  
"You're aware of the case?"  
  
"We not only know of him, Leon, but we found him dead, this morning."  
  
"There?"  
  
"Here. Apparently we need to compare notes."  
  
Multiversal Project Complex, underneath the civilian Pentagon Centre mall, Earth I  
  
"Pad is activating," said the main techie running the 'board', monitoring incursions and excursions here from and to other universes.  
  
An incursion was in process from Earth Prime. And it was successful, success defined as their arrival without incident nor harm. On the pad are two people: an older male, mid to late 50s, and a younger woman, late 20s, and their gear.  
  
The Complex Director on Earth I, Jonathan Overmeier, had the same backstory and present job title as his counterpart on Prime.  
  
He was the first to greet the two visitors as they step off the pad.  
  
"Agent Gibbs, Agent David," he said. "My name is Jonathan Overmeier, Director of the Multiversal Project Complex here. On behalf of the United States government, welcome to Earth I."  
  
Earth Prime  
Vance's office  
  
"Jenny, send me the photo, but I suspect that its origin is here."  
  
"How, Leon?"  
  
"Our Major Case Response Team's forensic specialist had a similar picture taken of her team with the man yesterday afternoon."  
  
"Oh Leon..."  
  
"Jenny. there's something else."  
  
"Good news, I hope."  
  
"After getting the call from Director Mueller, I played a hunch and told Agent Gibbs everything I was cleared to tell him. And I played another hunch, and sent him and Agent Ziva David over."  
  
"You sent them over. You sent them over."  
  
"I did....Jenny, if I trust anybody I trust Gibbs."  
  
Jenny took a breath, while grasping who she was about to have to deal with.  
  
"He's on his way over?"  
  
"He's at the Project now. Just got a text from their director."  
  
"Why couldn't you keep a lid on this, Leon? And not bring him over at all?"  
  
"He's already involved, Jenny, and so is his team. They've seen the photos. Of you. Of Agent Todd. And the others. Including the Memorial."  
  
"Leon....what am I supposed to do. You can't manage him. You know that as well as I do--"  
  
"He's older, Jenny, a little more set in his ways. But he's not going to do anything to screw up homeland security. I'm sending the right man, and woman, over. If you allow him in, then he'll keep himself from going where he shouldn't."  
  
"And now I have to keep him from going where he shouldn't. You sure he's the 'right' man, Leon?"'  
  
"As sure as anyone here can be, Jenny."  
  
"Then what do I do with ZIVA? You do realize her brother here was your equivalent of bin Laden, Manson, times TEN. Almost as bad as Hitler. What he did here was way bigger than our own 9/11; it changed our HISTORY, Leon. WAY more than the supervillains ever did, even Luthor. As big in its own way as the arrival of Kal-El--"  
  
"Jenny...I am sorry. I trusted Gibbs, and still trust him, to take his choice of people--"  
  
"Do you remember us telling you about the Siege? About Ari? Ziva is his half-sister, for Christ's sake! How is she going to take the news--"  
  
Leon Vance hadn't thought clearly enough to tell Gibbs to fly solo, or at least take DiNozzo or McGee instead of Ziva.  
  
"You got me," he said quietly. "I will say this: the Ziva David I know is one of the best agents this agency has ever had. She is a consummate professional. She will not do anything to hinder the mission."  
  
"The Ziva I knew would have become the same type of person...had she lived," Jenny replied. "Remind me to send over a book. I highly recommend Clark Kent's history of the Siege, or David Halberstam's bio of Haswari."  
  
"I look forward to it...and Jenny, you have my permission to discuss with them both the particulars of that event, in so far as it relates to their counterparts. And Agent Todd."  
  
"Who is here, Leon."  
  
"Then I will leave any potential meeting to your discretion, since you know the local scene better than I...my apologies, but I have to end this call. There's a minor crisis here I need to take care of."  
  
Director Vance hung up. Jenny stood up from her chair, walked in front of her desk, and told security to expect two visiting agents.  
  
"Ma'am," she was told. "Their pictures look like--"  
  
"I realize who they look like, officer," Jenny said. "When they arrive, have your people escort them to agent Borin's desk."  
  
After hanging up on security, Jenny walked across the room, and poured herself some bourbon. 90 proof.   
  
The Leon Vance she knew on her world was alive, and an assistant director of NCIS, heading up the Office of Special Projects. He could be difficult to deal with, she thought, and was thankful she, not he, ran the agency.   
  
Earth Prime  
  
"Thanks for the phone, Director," CIA Agent Jessica Bash said to Leon Vance. "I assure you we'll keep your agency completely in the loop."  
  
"I am sure you will," Vance told her, as she stepped on the elevator.  
  
Vance waited outside the bullpen of the Washington field office's Major Case Response Team for a few minutes, then walked back to the elevator. When it got to the third floor, he stepped on, and took it down to forensics.  
  
He found four men and one woman waiting for him.  
  
Vance motioned to them to get in the elevator. They did, the door closed, and Vance hit the button for the third floor.  
  
A few moments later, he hit the elevator kill switch; the lights dimmed, and the elevator came to a full stop.  
  
"We're secure," Vance stated. "Agent McGee, did you copy over the contents of the phone?"  
  
"Yes Director," McGee replied. "The contents are on a secure drive."  
  
"Good," Vance said. "I'm glad I was able to stall our colleagues from the CIA and Homeland long enough, though I regret that I couldn't hold on to the phone itself....now. This is where I answer any questions you might have."  
  
Tony DiNozzo stepped forward - a half-foot - to speak for his team.  
  
"Director, tell us everything," he said, "starting with where Gibbs and Ziva are, right now."  
  
"They are in Washington, D.C.," Vance replied. "On another Earth. Earth I, Roman numeral one. We're Earth Prime."  
  
"So this talk of multiple realities is true," said Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard.  
  
"It is," Vance replied.  
  
"And the photos in Abby's lab?" McGee.  
  
"They are legitimate." Vance.  
  
"Including Jenny. And Kate." Tony.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then when do we get to meet them both?" said Abby Scuito, with a firm tone. "And we are going to meet them."  
  


To Be Continued


End file.
